A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
Oscar Wilde
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Oscar Wilde
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Oscar Wilde
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
Oscar Wilde
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Oscar Wilde
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde
Genius is born--not paid.
Oscar Wilde
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
Oscar Wilde
I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde
I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Oscar Wilde
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.
Oscar Wilde
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Oscar Wilde
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Oscar Wilde
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Oscar Wilde
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
Oscar Wilde
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.
Oscar Wilde
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Oscar Wilde
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
Oscar Wilde,/
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Oscar Wilde
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Oscar Wilde
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Oscar Wilde<
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Oscar Wilde
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Oscar Wilde
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
Oscar Wilde
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Oscar Wilde
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
Oscar Wilde
We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
Oscar Wilde
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde
Why was I born with such contemporaries?
Oscar Wilde
Wisdom comes with winters.
Oscar Wilde
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
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.
Oscar Wilde, "The Remarkable Rocket"
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act 3
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.
Oscar Wilde, Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal husband, 1893
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I
Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde, In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson
One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
Oscar Wilde, L'Envoi, 1882
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
I can resist anything but temptation.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
Only the shallow know themselves.
Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882
Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, 1882
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891
Do not speak ill of society, Algie. Only people who can't get in do that.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3,/
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire, 1912
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
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; menrisk theirs.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881)
I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde, upon being told the cost of an operation
