Oscar Wilde Quotes

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
Oscar Wilde

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
Oscar Wilde

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Oscar Wilde

A true friend stabs you in the front.
Oscar Wilde

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Oscar Wilde

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Oscar Wilde

All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Oscar Wilde

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Oscar Wilde

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.
Oscar Wilde

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
Oscar Wilde

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Oscar Wilde

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
Oscar Wilde

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
Oscar Wilde

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
Oscar Wilde

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde

As yet, Bernard Shaw hasn't become prominent enough to have any enemies, but none of his friends like him.
Oscar Wilde

At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.
Oscar Wilde

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Oscar Wilde

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Oscar Wilde

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
Oscar Wilde

Biography lends to death a new terror.
Oscar Wilde

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
Oscar Wilde

Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Oscar Wilde

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
Oscar Wilde

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Oscar Wilde

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Oscar Wilde

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Oscar Wilde

Everything popular is wrong.
Oscar Wilde

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Oscar Wilde

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Oscar Wilde

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Oscar Wilde

Hatred is blind, as well as love.
Oscar Wilde

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Oscar Wilde

He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.
Oscar Wilde

He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.
Oscar Wilde

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
Oscar Wilde

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

How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
Oscar Wilde

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde

I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde

I can resist everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde

I have nothing to declare except my genuis.
Oscar Wilde

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Oscar Wilde

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

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Oscar Wilde

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
Oscar Wilde

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
Oscar Wilde

I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
Oscar Wilde

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Oscar Wilde

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
Oscar Wilde

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
Oscar Wilde

I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
Oscar Wilde

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Oscar Wilde

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
Oscar Wilde

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
Oscar Wilde

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
Oscar Wilde

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
Oscar Wilde

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Oscar Wilde

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Oscar Wilde

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
Oscar Wilde

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.
Oscar Wilde

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
Oscar Wilde

In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Oscar Wilde

In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.
Oscar Wilde

In married life three is company and two none.
Oscar Wilde

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Oscar Wilde

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Oscar Wilde

It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.
Oscar Wilde

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Oscar Wilde

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Oscar Wilde

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
Oscar Wilde

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
Oscar Wilde

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
Oscar Wilde

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.
Oscar Wilde

Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
Oscar Wilde

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Oscar Wilde

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Oscar Wilde

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Oscar Wilde

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