Oscar Wilde, The Importance Of Being Earnest Quotes
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.
I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.
Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.
I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.
I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.
To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.
I have a business appointment that I am anxious... to miss.
They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.
I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
JACK: I will be back in a few moments, dear Canon. Gwendolen! Wait here for me!GWENDOLEN: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
LADY BRACKNELLTo speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.
LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.ALGERNONI hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.
In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.
JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.
I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.
JACKYou're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.GWENDOLENOh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.
Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.That is exactly what things were originally made for.
You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.
Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?
My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about.
I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should not probably forget all about them.
MISS PRISMMemory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbroker's do that, and then merely at dinner parties.
Outside the family circle, papa, I'm glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.
Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.
If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.