Wilde Quotes: Oscar Wilde Quotes

 

"A cynic, a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal"

"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

"A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle."

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."

"All art is immoral."

"All that we know who lie in gaol, Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,  A year whose days are long."

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

"And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of spring,
And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus bed is a quivering moon of fire,
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring."

"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success."

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

"Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it."

"Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal."

"Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror."

"Art persists, it timelessly continues."

"As a pomegranate, cut in twain,
White-seeded is her crimson mouth."

"As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."

"Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty."

"Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood."

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."

"But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all."

"Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise."

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace."

"Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography."

"God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too."

"Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do."

"He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him."

"He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing."

"His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning."

"I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood."

"I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."

"I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram."

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

"I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

"It is always the unreadable that occurs."

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

"It is through Art and through Art only that we can realize our perfection; through Art and Art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence."

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."

"Lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance —
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?"

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

"Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose."

"Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event."

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

"Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They're the only things we can pay."

"On George Bernard Shaw An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him."

"One can survive everything nowadays except death."

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

"Only the shallow know themselves."

"Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you."

"Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself."

"Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more."

"Over the piano was printed a notice: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."

"People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately."

"Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so."

"Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both."

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose."

"Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result."

"Tell me, when you are alone with him (Max Beerbohm) Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?"

"The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things."

"The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death."

"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."

"The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself."

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"The vilest deeds like poison-weeds,
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man,
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair."

"The wild Bee reels from bough to bough,
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering."

"There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
The butterfly can see it from afar,
Although one summer evening’s dew could fill,
Its little cup twice over, ere the star
Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold,
And be no prodigal."

"There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other---by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought."

"There is no sin except stupidity."

"To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability."

"Tread Lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow"

"Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."

"We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language."

"When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."

"Where there is sorrow there is holy ground."

"Why, what a wonderful piece of luck! Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name."

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword."