Oscar Wilde: Trending quotes (page 19)

Oscar Wilde trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
Oscar Wilde: 1624   quotes 1005   likes

“The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“When good Americans die, they go to Paris"
"Where do bad Americans go?"
"They stay in America”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Act I.
A Woman of No Importance (1893)
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Context: Mrs. Allonby: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.
Lady Hunstanton: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?
Lord Illingworth: Oh, they go to America.

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”

Oscar Wilde

“I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

People , Music , Time

“His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love , Passion , Madness

“True friends stab you in the front”

Oscar Wilde

Also found in variants such as "A true friend stabs you in the front".
The earliest known example of this quote comes from Walter Winchell's syndicated newspaper column in mid-January 1955: 'On Broadway, cynically reports Jimmy Nelson, "a true friend is one who stabs you in the front"'
The earliest version of this quote found in Google Books is from 1958, where the quote "A true friend is one who stabs you in the front" is attributed to actor Steve Dunne https://books.google.com/books?id=MF5-AAAAMAAJ&q=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&dq=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwig2JCRnKrMAhUC42MKHaNzCGsQ6AEIHDAA.
In 1981, a similar quote: "He is a fine friend. He stabs you in the front" was attributed to Hollywood writer and producer Leonard Levinson https://books.google.com/books?id=Xbe8zbfuVLgC&q=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&dq=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMjOrQnKrMAhVL2GMKHcQQDSgQ6AEIHTAA.
In 1984, an article in Ms. Magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=sfIbAQAAMAAJ&q=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&dq=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMjOrQnKrMAhVL2GMKHcQQDSgQ6AEIJzAC stated that "the Hollywood definition of a friend" was "someone who stabs you in the front".
The earliest attribution to Oscar Wilde was from 1989 https://books.google.com/books?id=CnQJAAAAIAAJ&q=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22+wilde&dq=friend+%22stabs+you+in+the+front%22+wilde&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2oqLfnKrMAhVG52MKHXdPANkQ6AEIJTAC: "A good friend is one who stabs you in the front". No source was given.
Disputed
Variant: A good friend will always stab you in the front.
Source: e.g. "Broadway and Elsewhere" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/3706522/, Pharos-Tribune (Logansport, IN), 1955-01-16, p. 4

“Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.”

Oscar Wilde

Source: De Profundis and Other Writings

Pain , Mood , Suffering , Time

“Art only begins where Imitation ends.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

Source: De Profundis

Art

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

Oscar Wilde

Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

“You and I will always be friends."

"Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Books , Forgiveness

“An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Life , Beauty

“The one charm about the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: The one charm about the past is that it is the past.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Women , Past

“Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.”

Oscar Wilde
People , Feeling , Weather

“I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious."
"Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense."
"Nobody ever does.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Love

“Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

Oscar Wilde

Lady Bracknell, Act I.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
Context: I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

“Life cheats us with shadows.
We ask it for pleasure.
It gives it to us with bitterness
and disappointment in its train.”

Oscar Wilde
Life , Pleasure , Disappointment , Cheating

“Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest