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

Experience the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde through his most famous quotes. From the importance of love and forgiveness to the rebellion within every woman, delve into the captivating world of Wilde's words and be inspired to embrace your own unique voice.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright who gained popularity in London in the late 19th century. Known for his epigrams and plays, Wilde achieved great success with works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray. He was also infamous for his conviction for gross indecency, resulting in imprisonment and ultimately, his early death at the age of 46.

Born to Anglo-Irish parents in Dublin, Wilde showed exceptional talent and intellect from a young age. After studying at prestigious universities, he became associated with aestheticism and immersed himself in literary pursuits. With his sharp wit and extravagant style, Wilde became a prominent figure in social circles. He expressed his artistic ideas through various literary endeavors, including poetry, lectures, and journalism.

Wilde’s fascination with art led him to write dramas that combined aesthetic details with broader societal themes. Although faced with obstacles such as the prohibition of biblical subjects on English stages, he proved resilient and went on to become one of the most successful playwrights of his time. However, his fame took a dramatic turn when he prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry for libel due to their connection through Lord Alfred Douglas. The trial resulted not only in Wilde dropping charges but also in his arrest and conviction for homosexual acts.

While serving his sentence, Wilde penned De Profundis, a reflective letter that delves into his spiritual journey during his trials. Upon release, he fled to France where he wrote what would be his last work - The Ballad of Reading Gaol - an introspective poem inspired by the harsh realities of prison life. Wilde never returned to Ireland or Britain before his untimely demise. Despite enduring personal turmoil and societal backlash, Oscar Wilde left an indelible mark on literature and continues to be remembered as one of history's most influential writers.

✵ 16. October 1854 – 30. November 1900
Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde: 812   quotes 1007   likes

Oscar Wilde Quotes

“Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.”

Oscar Wilde

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

“I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

Age

“It is always the unreadable that occurs.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

The Decay of Lying (1889)

“The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Lord Illingworth, Act I
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Youth

“Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb a the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Mabel Chiltern, Act II
An Ideal Husband (1895)

People , Music

“A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

“The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. V, st. 30
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Context: The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.

“Kelvil: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?
Lord Illingworth: A much better institution of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act I
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Housing

“Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

People , Suffering

“The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

World , Future , Dependency

“The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.”

Oscar Wilde

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Literature

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

World , Country

“For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Exercises

“A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both”

Oscar Wilde

Similar quotes are found, unattributed, from as early as 1899 https://books.google.com/books?id=lC81AAAAIAAJ&pg=RA4-PA32&dq=%22two+evils%22+both+pessimist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIuveP5uz0yAIVBVqICh0GRQQJ#v=onepage&q=%22two%20evils%22%20both%20pessimist&f=false. First clear attribution to Wilde was not until 1977 https://books.google.com/books?id=eOcWAQAAMAAJ&q=oscar+wilde+%22two+evils%22&dq=oscar+wilde+%22two+evils%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CE4Q6AEwCWoVChMIjMLEuO30yAIVBpSICh0c4Qi9
Disputed

Evil

“They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Painting

“The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.”

Oscar Wilde

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

“Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

“The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Art , Parting , Dependency

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life. Mothers are different. Mothers are darlings.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act IV
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Life , Family

“The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Cecily, Act II
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

“However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

“Only good questions deserve good answers.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

Question

“There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yield and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Men , Perfection

“When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act IV
An Ideal Husband (1895)

People , Time

“As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.
Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in the man.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act I http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Women+have+become+too+brilliant+Nothing+spoils+a+romance+so+much+as+a+sense+of+humour+in+the+woman%22+%22or+the+want+of+it+in+the+man%22&pg=PA34#v=onepage
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Women , Sense

“This too I know—and wise it were
If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. V, st. 29
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Men , Christ

“Lord Caversham: No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.
Lord Goring: Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Men , Sex , Sense

“Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.”

Oscar Wilde

Letter http://www.artsandartists.org/exhpages/whistler.html to James McNeill Whistler (23 February 1885)

Time

“I cannot understand your nature. If my nature had been made to suit your comprehension rather than my own requirements, I am afraid I would have made a very poor figure in the world.”

Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists

Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

World , Understanding , Nature

“In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. I, st. 3
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

A reference to George Meredith's style.
The Decay of Lying (1889)

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

Parent , Animals

“Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Mrs Cheveley, Act I
An Ideal Husband (1895)

World , Science , Future

“All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.”

Oscar Wilde

"The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," Blackwood's Magazine, July 1889 http://books.google.com/books?id=QfczAQAAMAAJ&q=%22All+charming+people+I+fancy+are+spoiled+It+is+the+secret+of+their+attraction%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage

People , Secret

“Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

People , Knowledge

“Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.”

Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists

Baron Raff, Act IV
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

“Why was I born with such contemporaries?”

Oscar Wilde

George Bernard Shaw Preface to The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (1910)
Misattributed

“The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Lord Illingworth, Act I
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

Country

“Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.”

Oscar Wilde book The Happy Prince and Other Tales

"The Nightingale and the Rose"
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)

Love , Music , Lovers , Heart

“In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately, in America journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt, people are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. but it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated. In England, journalism, except in a few well-known instances, not having been carried to such excesses of brutality, is still a great factor, a remarkable power. The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people's private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
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

People , Exercises , Nature

“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.”

Oscar Wilde Vera; or, The Nihilists

Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

Problem

“I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

Country

“And it is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologise to one in private for what they have written against one in public.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”

Oscar Wilde

"A New Calendar," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1307/ (February 17, 1887)

“I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lip.”

Oscar Wilde

In a journal or later note by George Cecil Ives recording a meeting with Wilde in 1900, Oscar Wilde: Myths, Miracles and Imitations (Cambridge University Press,1996), John Stokes

Kiss