Authors - Oscar Wilde
Brief Biography
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death. - Wikipedia
Quotes by Oscar WildeBrowse all of these
Quote 1067by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.
Quote 1088by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.
Quote 1096by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Quote 1155by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Quote 1175by Anonymous on 11/01/2011
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Quote 1360by Anonymous on 12/01/2011
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Quote 1386by Anonymous on 12/01/2011
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
Quote 1394by Anonymous on 12/01/2011
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
Quote 1438by Anonymous on 13/01/2011
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Quote 1538by Anonymous on 14/01/2011
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Quote 1642by Anonymous on 15/01/2011
The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.
Quote 1675by Anonymous on 15/01/2011
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Quote 1685by Anonymous on 15/01/2011
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
Quote 1794by Anonymous on 16/01/2011
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Quote 2186by Anonymous on 24/01/2011
There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
Quote 2233by Anonymous on 25/01/2011
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
Quote 2342by Anonymous on 28/01/2011
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
Quote 2432by Anonymous on 29/01/2011
An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.
Quote 2529by Anonymous on 31/01/2011
Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.
Quote 2640by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, wheather in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
Quote 2684by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Quote 2719by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.
Quote 2790by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
Quote 2793by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.
Quote 2845by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization.
Quote 2911by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Quote 2928by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Quote 2941by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.
Quote 2975by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Quote 2991by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.
Quote 3015by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Life is one fool thing after another where as love is two fool things after each other.
Quote 3086by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.
Quote 3095by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Quote 3118by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Quote 3185by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Quote 3196by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
Quote 3228by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.
Quote 3245by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
Quote 3312by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
Quote 3339by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.
Quote 3348by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.
Quote 3427by Anonymous on 06/02/2011
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
Quote 3496by Anonymous on 06/02/2011
No man should have a secret from his wife; she invariably finds out.
Quote 3514by Anonymous on 06/02/2011
Yet each man kills the thing he loves, from all let this be heard. Some does it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss the brave man with the sword.
Quote 3582by Anonymous on 07/02/2011
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Quote 3591by Anonymous on 07/02/2011
A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.
Quote 3712by Anonymous on 09/02/2011
More than half modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
Quote 3755by Anonymous on 10/02/2011
But what is the difference between literature and journalism? Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Quote 3800by Anonymous on 10/02/2011
Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Quote 3836by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Quote 3843by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.
Quote 3950by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
Quote 3982by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Quote 4007by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Quote 4097by Anonymous on 15/02/2011
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.
Quote 4156by Anonymous on 15/02/2011
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
Quote 4200by Anonymous on 16/02/2011
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Quote 4202by Anonymous on 16/02/2011
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Quote 4285by Anonymous on 18/02/2011
It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiased opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.
Quote 4307by Anonymous on 19/02/2011
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Quote 4369by Anonymous on 20/02/2011
Men always want to be a woman's first love; women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance.
Quote 4498by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.
Quote 4499by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
Where there is no exaggeration there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.
Quote 4519by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
The mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-à-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.
Quote 4523by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Quote 4556by Anonymous on 23/02/2011
One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything.
Quote 4657by Anonymous on 25/02/2011
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
Quote 4778by Anonymous on 27/02/2011
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.
Quote 4799by Anonymous on 28/02/2011
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Quote 5124by Anonymous on 21/05/2011
To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.
Quote 5271by Anonymous on 10/06/2011
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Quote 5545by Anonymous on 14/07/2011
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Quote 5745by Anonymous on 25/08/2011
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Quote 6003by Anonymous on 12/09/2011
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Quote 6138by Anonymous on 14/09/2011
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
Quote 6170by Anonymous on 14/09/2011
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Quote 6208by Anonymous on 16/09/2011
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Quote 6384by Anonymous on 19/09/2011
Being prepared for loss is never the same as being ready for it.
Quote 6608by Anonymous on 01/10/2011
We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
Quote 6787by Anonymous on 08/10/2011
A divine falsehood is more powerful than any human truth.
Quote 6883by Anonymous on 12/10/2011
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Quote 7387by Anonymous on 08/11/2011
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Quote 7638by Anonymous on 07/01/2012
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Quote 7662by Anonymous on 12/01/2012
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Quote 8453by Anonymous on 14/05/2012
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
Quote 8609by Anonymous on 19/05/2012
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Quote 9776by Anonymous on 23/08/2012
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
Quote 10257by Anonymous on 24/09/2012
Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
Quote 10258by Anonymous on 24/09/2012
Do not speak ill of society, Algie. Only people who can't get in do that.
Quote 10440by Anonymous on 05/10/2012
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Quote 10467by Anonymous on 06/10/2012
Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.
Quote 11083by Anonymous on 22/11/2012
I don't play accurately-any one can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
Quote 11592by Anonymous on 10/01/2013
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
Quote 11691by Anonymous on 16/01/2013
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Quote 12098by Anonymous on 28/02/2013
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
Quote 12188by Anonymous on 15/03/2013
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Quote 12669by Anonymous on 08/05/2013
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Quote 12689by Anonymous on 11/05/2013
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
Quote 13016by Anonymous on 11/06/2013
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Quote 13082by Anonymous on 18/06/2013
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
Quote 13457by Anonymous on 25/07/2013
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.
Quote 13699by Anonymous on 24/08/2013
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Quote 13978by Anonymous on 01/10/2013
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
