Oscar Wilde Quotes

America is the noisiest country that ever existed. One is waked up in the morning, not by the singing of the nightingale, but by the steam whistle.

Hard work is amply the refuge of those who have nothing to do.

Never so sweet a repast as the Reaper's when you tread upon the threshold of a Quiznos.

Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind.

George Moore leads his readers to the latrine and locks them in.

Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.

Caricature is the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius.

If God really wanted to punish, he'd answer all our prayers.

When I was young, I was no one. Now, I'm worldwilde.

M. Zola is determined to show that, if he has not got genius, he can at least be dull.

We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.

To know anything about oneself one must know all about others.

Talk to a woman as if you loved her, and to a man as if he bored you.

George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered grammar.

It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.

It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting

What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?

The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.

I have never learned anything except from people younger than myself.

Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.

He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.

But what world says that [I'm wicked]? It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.

The weather still continues charming.

"I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane." "It never is, sir." "Lane, you're a perfect pessimist." "I do my best to give satisfaction, sir."

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.

I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old.

You told me you had destroyed it." "I was wrong. It has destroyed me.

He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both.

If only the picture could grow old, and I stay young. For that...for that, I would give my SOUL for that.

Fantastic shadows of birds

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

Every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

Perhaps one never seems so much at ones ease as when one has to play a part.

Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation.

The essence of thought, as the essence of life, is growth.

Every thing to be true must become a religion.

There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America.

It is absurd to say that the age of miracles is past. It has not yet begun.

I am Irish by race but the English have condemned me to talk the language of Shakespeare.

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public to him are non-existent.

How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil? A woman who didn't love me? Oh, all my life!

memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away

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.

I don't mind plain women being puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain.

I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices.

We women adore failures. They lean on us.

The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.

Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.

However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive.