Oscar Wilde Quotes

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling.

Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.

An idea that isn't risky is hardly worth calling an idea.

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.

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

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

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

Travel ennobles the spirit and does away with our prejudices.

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.

Niagara Falls is simply a vast unnecessary amount of water going over the wrong way and then falling over unnecessary cliffs...The wonder would be if the water did not fall.

Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.

I like talking to a brick wall- it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm.

Married men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.

Some things are more precious because they don't last long.

I don't recognize you - I've changed a lot.

No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime.

The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God's eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone

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.

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.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

All art is quite useless.

To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.

Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

Only the shallow know themselves.

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

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

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

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

There were opium-dens, where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.

The best art is about individualism, free self-expression and realising a unique, imaginative perspective- A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

A man who moralizes is a hypocrite, and a woman who does so is invariably plain.

Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons.

The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity.

Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling.

Bigamy ? It's having one wife too much... ...Monogamy ? It's the same.

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.

I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws.

Indeed, as any one who has ever worked among the poor knows only too well, the brotherhood of man is no mere poet's dream, it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

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

For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.