THE WIT OF OSCAR WILDE
Always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
The gods bestowed on Max the gift of perpetual old age.
When good Americans die they go to Paris.
All art is quite useless.
Ah! Don't say you agree with me.
When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong
Of course America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
The General was essentially a man of peace,
except in his domestic life.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle
that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
I never put off till tomorrow what I can do the day after.
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
One should always be in love; that is the reason one should never marry.
A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
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.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
I am not young enough to know everything.
The General was essentially a man of peace,
except in his domestic life.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
I can believe anything as long as it is incredible.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
To many, no doubt, he will seem blatent and bumptious, but we prefer to regard him as being simply British.
It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
I never play cricket. It requires one to assume such indecent postures.
One must have some sort of occupation nowadays.
If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about.
I never travel without my diary. One should always
have something sensational to read in the train.
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table
can dominate the world.
I have made an important discovery.that alcohol,
taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication.
Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
He [Bernard Shaw] hasn't an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him.
Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.
The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water.
Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary.
It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear.
I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.
Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.
Tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.
Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys.
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
The good ended happily,and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
Ah, well, then, I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is gone.
It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
One of us must go.
Cultivated leisure is the aim of man.
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman.
It's a thing no married man knows anything about.
Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellect.
Really, if the lower orders don't set a good example, what on earth is the use of them?
The extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England is that they are always losing their relations. They are extremely fortunate in that respect.
In married life three is company and two none.
They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.
Niagara Falls is the bride's second great disappointment.
Dammit, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can't be always living for pleasure.
The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.It ends with Revelations.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
Women have a much better time than men in this world. There are far more things forbidden to them.
What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?
I live in terror of not being misunderstood.
When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is.
Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.
Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
You should study the Peerage.It is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
Like dear St Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.
In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press.
If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties make it unbearable.
In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it.
I suppose publishers are untrustworthy. They certainly always look it.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
I'm glad to hear you smoke. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is.
To make men Socialists is nothing, but to make Socialism human is a great thing
Never speak disrespectfully of Society. Only people who can't get into it do that.
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful! To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy.
On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.
There is no sin except stupidity.
I don't wish to sign my name, though I am afraid everybody will know who the write is: one's style is one's signature always.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
I can sympathise with everything, except suffering.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
I can resist everything except temptation.
The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.
The central problem in Hamlet is whether the critics are mad or only pretending to be mad.
The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.
It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.
Time is a waste of money.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, for all I hear, I shouldn't like to.
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Youth! Youth! There is nothing in the world but youth!
The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.
Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.
When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.