xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“If you want to be a doormat you have to lay yourself down first.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“She… can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

Source: De Profundis

“Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It is the stupid and the ugly who have the best of it in this world”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“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.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Letter from Paris (May 1900)

“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Miss Prism, Act II
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Lady Bracknell, Act III
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive”

Oscar Wilde book Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Variant: Ambition is the last refuge of the failure
Context: Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

“I never change, except in my affections.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet