Oscar Wilde Quotes
Variant: I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.”
Gwendolen, Act III.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Variant: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
Variant: Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Variant: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
Mr. Dumby, Act III
Variant: There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
Source: The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
Quoted by Alvin Redman in The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde http://books.google.com/books?id=qUjQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Keep+love+in+your+heart+a+life+without+it+is+like+a+sunless+garden+when+the+flowers+are+dead+the+consciousness+of+loving+and+being+loved+brings+a+warmth+and+richness+to+life+that+nothing+else+can+bring%22&pg=PA102#v=onepage (1952)
“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.”
"The Relation of Dress to Art," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14062/14062-h/14062-h.htm (February 28, 1885)
reprinted in Aristotle at Afternoon Tea:The Rare Oscar Wilde (1991).
Variant: Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture”
The Decay of Lying (1889)
Context: If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture... In a house, we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned for our use and our pleasure.
“One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry, continual wrong. Personal property hinders Individualism at every step.
“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Variant: Patriotism is the vice of nations.
“For one moment our lives met, our souls touched.”
Variant: For one moment our lives met our souls touched.
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
“When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.”
Source: De Profundis
“Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.”
Source: The Happy Prince and Other Tales
“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”
Lord Goring, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)
The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I
Context: 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.
Context: 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.
Context: 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.
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)
Source: The Nightingale and the Rose
Sir Robert Chiltern, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)
“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.
