Oscar Wilde: Man

Oscar Wilde was Irish writer and poet. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Oscar Wilde: 1624 quotes1011 likes

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance.”

Oscar Wilde

“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde quote: “Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”

Oscar Wilde

This quote was instead first mentioned in a 1931 book titled “Since Calvary: An Interpretation of Christian History” by the comparative religion specialist Lewis Browne.
Disputed

“Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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)

“There was purification in punishment. Not 'Forgive us our sins,' but 'Smite us for our iniquities' should be the prayer of a man to a most just God.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

Oscar Wilde

The Portrait of Mr. W. H. http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/portrait/wh01.html (1889)

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”

Oscar Wilde

Variant: I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. I, st. 7
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being”

Oscar Wilde

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“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.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“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.”

Oscar Wilde

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

Oscar Wilde

Quoted by George Bernard Shaw in a letter to Ellen Terry, 25 September 1896.
Context: On George Bernard Shaw An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.

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

Oscar Wilde

“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.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray