“Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.”

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Vor allen Dingen soll man nie vergessen, daß die Gesellschaft lieber unterhalten, als unterrichtet sein will.
Variant translation: Above all, we should never forget that society would prefer to be entertained, than taught.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)

Source: Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (1952), p. 6

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 81

Source: The Charioteer

"A Surfeit of Fine Art" (1986), p. 127
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Context: The eager or dutiful persons who subject themselves to these tidal waves of the classics and the moderns find everything wonderful in an absent-minded way. The wonder washes over them rather than into them, and one of its effects is to make anything shocking or odd suddenly interesting enough to gain a month's celebrity. And so another by-product of our come-one, come-all policy is the tendency to reward cleverness, not art, and to put one more hurdle in the path of the truly original artist.

Comme on craint peu de choquer la vanité, on arrive fort vite en Italie au ton de l'intimité, et à dire des choses personnelles.
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 6

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Collected Poems (1938) New Poems 22
Variant: I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.