Oscar Wilde quotes

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

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

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

In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

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

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.

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

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

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

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

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.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

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

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

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

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

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

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

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

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

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

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

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

Hatred is blind, as well as love.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

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

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

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

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.

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.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

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

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

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.

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

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

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

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

Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

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

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.

Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.

In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.

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

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

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

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

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

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

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

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

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

'The Lady's World' should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.

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.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

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

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

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

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

There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.

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

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart.

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

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

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.

True friends stab you in the front.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

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

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

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

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

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

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

Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

I can resist everything except temptation.

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

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

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

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

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

Who, being loved, is poor?

Those whom the gods love grow young.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

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.

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

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

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

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

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

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

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

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

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

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

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.

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

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.