xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“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.”

Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mr. Dumby, Act III. Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880) Variant: Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Variant: Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray Context: Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. [First used by Wilde in Vera; or, The Nihilists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera;_or,_The_Nihilists. ]

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

No known source in Oscar Wilde's works. Earliest known example of a similar quote comes from a 2001 usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.atheism/ZadPWBw-wew/G_3tx370wpoJ (not attributed to Wilde) Attributed to Wilde on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/15736-i-don-t-want-to-go-to-heaven-none-of-my?page=83 some time on or before January 2008. Bears some resemblance to Machiavelli's deathbed dream https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli#Disputed. Disputed

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”

Oscar Wilde book Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Source: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“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.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: 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.
Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

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

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Obraz Doriana Graye)

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

This quote was instead first mentioned in a 1931 book titled “Since Calvary: An Interpretation of Christian History” by the comparative religion specialist Lewis Browne.
Disputed

“Only love can keep anyone alive…”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance