True friends stab you in the front.
Oscar Wilde Quotations
We found 220 matching quotations.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
She is a peacock in everything but beauty.
When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
Art is the most intense form of individualism that the world has known.
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
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.
Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Only the shallow know themselves.
The problem with the common person is that he is so unbearably common!
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
My wallpaper and i are fighting a duel to death. One or the other has to go.
A grand passion is the privelege of people who have nothing to do.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Being natural is simply a pose.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
...my dear boy, no woman is a genius. They are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist.
The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing.
The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
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.
The basis for optimism is sheer terror.
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Action is the last refuge of those who cannot dream.
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Live the wonderful life that is in you.
We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.
To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Punctuality is the thief of time.
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
All art is quite useless.
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Imagination is a quality given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humaor is provided to console him from what he is.
Wisdom comes with winters.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
Philanthropic people lose all sense of Humanity, it is their distinguishing characteristic.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril.
Morality, like art, means a drawing a line someplace.
Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
Eduaction is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
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.
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
I am not young enough to know everything.
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Knowledge would be fatal, it is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things beautiful.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Missionaries are going to reform the world whether it wants to or not.
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
I have the simplest of tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Divorces are made in heaven.
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
There is no sin except stupidity.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking other people to live as one wishes to live.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Oscar Wilde: "I wish I had said that." Whistler: "You will, Oscar; you will.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
I can resist anything but temptation.
To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.
Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.
Genius is born--not paid.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same
There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.
Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
No, Ernest, don't talk about action. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ectasy.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Chastity is the greatest form of perversion.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.
Dreamers can find their way by moonlight and their only punishment is that they see the dawn before the rest of the world.
Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm.
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.
The very essence of love is uncertainty.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.
Sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation.
Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything and when they grow older, they know it.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.
Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all.
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.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
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.
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.
When good Americans die they go to Paris.
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
About foxhunting: The unspeakable chasing the uneatable.
The only excuse for creating something useless is that one admires it intensely.
Philanthropy is the refuge of rich people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.
What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
Life imitates art more than art imitates life.
It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.
Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex.
... Nature, whose sweet rains fall of just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undetected. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
Like dear St. Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
I have nothing to declare but my genius.
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
Experience...is simply the name we give our mistakes.
The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.
He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
It often happens that the real tragedies in life occur in such an inarticulate manner that they hurt one by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women? merely adored.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
Science is the record of dead religions.