Oscar Wilde: Man

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

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

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Mrs Cheveley, Act I
Usually quoted as: No man is rich enough to buy back his own past.
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)

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

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“For Man's grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. III, st. 19
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

“Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist and entirely limit the artist. English public opinion, that is to say, tries to constrain and impede and warp the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and compels the journalist to retail things that are ugly, or disgusting, or revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the world and the most indecent newspapers.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) <br class="br">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

“Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“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.

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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&amp;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&amp;pg=PA34#v=onepage <br class="br">A Woman of No Importance (1893)

“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)

“The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“It will be a marvellous thing--the true personality of man--when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us, by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.”

Oscar Wilde

As quoted in In Victorian Days and Other Papers (1939) http://books.google.com/books?id=LfIjfuQGwOIC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=In+Victorian+days&amp;as_brr=0&amp;cd=1#v=onepage&amp;q=notorious&amp;f=false by Sir David Oswald Hunter-Blair, p. 122

“The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not?”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

“Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)