Oscar Wilde: Trending quotes

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Oscar Wilde: 1624 quotes1011 likes

“The supreme vice is shallowness.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”

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

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

“The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.”

Oscar Wilde

“Pleasures may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but sorrows cannot break it. Hearts live by being wounded.”

Oscar Wilde

“I really don't see what is so romantic about proposing. One may be accepted - one usually is, I believe - and then the excitement is ended. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Context: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

“How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.”

Oscar Wilde Salome

Source: Salomé

“We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

Oscar Wilde

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“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.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Lord Darlington, Act I
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

“My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Cecil Graham, Act II
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

“Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar”

Oscar Wilde

Source: The Picture Of Dorian Gray

“Never mind what I say. I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Source: An Ideal Husband

“It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. II, st. 9
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“He hadn’t a single redeeming vice.”

Oscar Wilde