Oscar Wilde: Trending quotes

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Oscar Wilde: 1624 quotes1011 likes

“Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I.
Variant: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.”

Oscar Wilde

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

Oscar Wilde

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Darlington, Act III.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Variant: What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Context: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic? ]

“The heart was made to be broken.”

Oscar Wilde

“Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.”

Oscar Wilde

Source: The Complete Fairy Tales

“Life is too short to learn German”

Oscar Wilde

“All art is immoral.”

Oscar Wilde book Intentions

Intentions (1891)

“One can survive everything nowadays except death.”

Oscar Wilde

" Oscariana http://books.google.com/books?id=2otbAAAAMAAJ&q="One+can+survive+everything+nowadays+except+death"&pg=PA65#v=onepage" (1907)

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke?”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism. <br class="br">The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) <br class="br">Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 13 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala

“The only possible society is oneself.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

“An Irish gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes but won’t.”

Oscar Wilde

First ascribed to Wilde by The Boston Globe in 1991. The joke probably appeared for the first time in 1917, when The Atchison Weekly Globe attributed it to a local man named Frank Fiest. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: My Idea of a Gentleman Is He Who Can Play a Cornet and Won’t, Quote Investigator, 14 August 2021 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/04/21/cornet/,

“For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt.”

Oscar Wilde

The English Renaissance of Art https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wilde/oscar/english-renaissance-of-art/ (1882)

“Puritans cannot destroy a beautiful thing, yet, by means of their extraordinary prurience, they can almost taint beauty for a moment. It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

“There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

“It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

“For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)