Oscar Wilde Quotes (991 Quotes)

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal.

I don't want to earn my living I want to live.

That little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

Each man kills the thing he loves.

The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork - Oscar Wilde

He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.

Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.

Judges, like the criminal classes, have their lighter moments

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

It is confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Extravagance is the luxury of the poor penury is the luxury of the rich.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

Ignorance is like a delicate fruit touch it, and the bloom is gone.

Gossip is charming History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Cecily When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.

To elope is cowardly it is running away from danger and danger has become so rare in modern life

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.

The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.

He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.

A true friend stabs you in the front.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.

EXPERT An ordinary man away from home giving advice.

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.

Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognise the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.

There is no such thing as good influence.

Down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Ah Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.

Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find an expression for joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy.