Oscar Wilde: Quotes about life

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

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act III
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Source: Lady Windermere's Fan

“Life is too short to learn German”

Oscar Wilde

“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost

Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Variant: Often quoted as: Life is far too important to be taken seriously.
Variant: Often quoted as: Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Variant: Often quoted as: Life is too important to take seriously.
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), Lord Darlington, Act I

“If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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.

“Keep 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 warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

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)

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.”

Oscar Wilde book The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Source: The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.”

Oscar Wilde book The Nightingale and the Rose

Source: The Nightingale and the Rose

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

“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.”

Oscar Wilde

Review of Herbert Giles translation of the works of Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsu) in The Speaker (8 February 1890)