“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
As quoted in Oscar Wilde : An Idler's Impression (1917) http://books.google.com/books?id=ddAVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=edgar+saltus+wilde&cd=3#v=snippet&q=satisfied&f=false by Edgar Saltus, p. 20
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
A version of this quote was published anonymously in an insurance magazine in 1908 https://books.google.com/books?id=S2JJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA375&dq=%22others+whenever+they+go%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja94i3iaXLAhUY7mMKHW5fAGIQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=%22others%20whenever%20they%20go%22&f=false. The earliest attribution to Wilde was in 1955 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22others+whenever+they+go%22+wilde#hl=en&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min:1900%2Ccd_max:1999&tbm=bks&q=%22others+whenever+they+go+oscar+wilde+jive%22; no source in Wilde's writings has been found.
Disputed
“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
Variant: I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
Variant: The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
In a letter to Ada Leverson [Sphinx] recorded in her book Letters To The Sphinx From Oscar Wilde and Reminiscences of the Author (1930)
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
The Portrait of Mr. W. H. http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/portrait/wh01.html (1889)
“I am not young enough to know everything.”
Variant: I am not young enough to know everything.
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Variant: Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Context: Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
Act I
Often quoted as "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken.”
Anonymous advertising copywriter for Menards chain of hardware stores (2000), according to Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/20/be-yourself
Misattributed
“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”
Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.oscarwildecollection.com/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887). For history and analysis of the quote see Common Language http://oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/common-language.html.
Sir Robert Chiltern, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)
Source: The Nightingale and the Rose