Oscar Wilde Quotes

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812 Quotes on Love, Forgiveness, Rebellion, and Embracing Your Unique Voice

“The world is made by the singer for the dreamer.”

“because to influence a person is to give one's own soul.”

“The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.”

“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”

“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.”

“Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.”

“Youth is the only thing worth having.”

“A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.”

“I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.”

“Millionaire models are rare enough; but, by Jove, model millionaires are rarer still!”

“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”

“It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place”

“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”

“God and other artists are always a little obscure…..”

“Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd.”

“LADY BRACKNELL

Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?”

“I am afraid that woman appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.”

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it”

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

“He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.”

“Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.”

“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

“Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.”

“Everyone quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.”

“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”

“Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.”

“The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence.”

“Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.”

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”

“MRS ALLONBY Is she such a mystery?
LORD ILLINGWORTH She is more than a mystery - she is a mood.
MRS ALLONBY Moods don't last.
LORD ILLINGWORTH It is their chief charm.”

“People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.”

“The sky was pure opal now.”

“You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is.”

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”

“MRS ALLONBY I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.
HESTER I think the stupid people talk a great deal.
MRS ALLONBY Ah, I never listen!”

“I have a business appointment that I am anxious… to miss.”

“And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.”

“Your days are your sonnets.”

“I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

“Oh, I love London society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.”

“All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.”

“Oh! journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read.”

“I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.”

“We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.”

“All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death;”

“Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.”

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”

“And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”

“And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity's machine.”