Oscar Wilde Quotes

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture.

Where there is no love there is no understanding.

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.

The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.

The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys.

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

The aim of love is to love. No more, no less.

She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.

A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.

Marriage is a long, dull meal with dessert served at the beginning.

Nature is a wet place where large numbers of ducks fly overhead uncooked.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

I beg your pardon I didn't recognise you - I've changed a lot.

Be moderate in all things, including moderation.

If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

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

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five

The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.

Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight when we pursue them.

I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

To be in love is to surpass one's self.

I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth.

Art persists, it timelessly continues.

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

Schools should be the most beautiful place in every town and village-so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be barred from going to school the following day.

There is one thing infinitely more pathetic than to have lost the woman one is in love with, and that is to have won her and found out how shallow she is!

It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world

More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn't read.

The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?

Experience is a question of instinct about life.

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

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go.

It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates.

In one dancing saloon I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'

Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the 'L' section, and find the word 'life.'

Authority is quite degrading.

Only the unimaginative can fail to find a reason for drinking Champagne

I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.

When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.