Oscar Wilde: Use

“It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.”

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself”

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it”

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.”

Oscar Wilde Salome

Source: Salomé

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”

“What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.”

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Lady Windermere, Act IV
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

“Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. III, st. 29
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

“In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them…A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions - one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral.”

“It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.”

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?”

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

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

“The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely any one at all escapes.”

“Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.”

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

“Kelvil: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?
Lord Illingworth: A much better institution of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.”

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Act I
A Woman of No Importance (1893)

“The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.”

“Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose.”

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

“Lord Caversham: No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.
Lord Goring: Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?”

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Act III
An Ideal Husband (1895)

“Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”

“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.”

"A New Calendar," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1307/ (February 17, 1887)