Oscar Wilde Quotes

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

“Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won't be invited to cocktail parties.”

“I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after.”

“This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.”

“Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.”

“I don’t say we all ought to misbehave. But we ought to look as if we could”

“Only the shallow know themselves.”

“All art is quite useless.”

“The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.”

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.”

“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”

“I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.”

“I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.”

“An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.”

“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.”

“Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.”

“The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature.”

“Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams”

“The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art.”

“The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.”

“But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.”

“She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.”

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”

“We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes…”

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”

“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

“Irony is wasted on the stupid”

“Punctuality is the thief of time”

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

“One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.”

“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible….”

“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.”

“When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.”

“I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.”

“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“One has a right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends.”

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”

“Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women… merely adored.”

“Misfortunes one can endure--they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults--ah!--there is the sting of life.”

“After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second glass you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

“The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”

“Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”

“Hearts Live By Being Wounded”

“I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.”

“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”