Oscar Wilde: Trending quotes

Oscar Wilde trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection

Oscar Wilde: 1624 quotes1011 likes

“I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It is better to be beautiful then to be good, but it is better to be good then to be ugly.”

Variant: It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.”

“Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.”

Oscar Wilde quote: “Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.”

“Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.”

Variant: I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing.

“Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkenness.”

“The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act I
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying (1889)

“When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I drink to separate my body from my soul.”

“Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Life is a nightmare that prevents one from sleeping.”

“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”

“You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)
Variant: Where there is no love there is no understanding.