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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 21

All Quotes Achievement Acting Affection Age Aging Ambition Anger Appearance Appreciation Arguing Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Beauty Beer Being Happy Being Real Being Single Being Yourself Belief Betrayal Blame Break Up Business Censorship Change Chaos Character Charity Children Christ Church College Common Sense Community Conformity Conscience Consciousness Cooking Country Courage Creativity Crime Criticism Critics Culture Curiosity Death Deception Defeat Desire Destiny Dignity Disappointment Doubt Drama Drinking Drunkenness Duty Dying Earth Eating Education Environment Ethics Evil Exercise Failing Failure Faith Falling In Love Family Fashion Fear Feelings Fidelity Fighting Flirting Food Forgiveness Friends Friendship Funny Future Genius Giving Gold Goodness Gossip Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greek Grief Growing Old Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heartbreak Heaven Hell Hilarious History Home Honesty Hope Horror House Human Nature Humanity Hurt Husband Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Imitation Impulse Individualism Individuality Innocence Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Irony Journalism Joy Judgement Judging Kissing Knowledge Language Laughter Leadership Learning Liars Liberty Life Life And Love Listening Literature Live Life Logic Loss Lost Love Love Love Life Luck Lust Lying Madness Mankind Manners Marriage Mask Maturity Mediocrity Memories Moderation Money Moon Morality Morning Motivational Mourning Music Nature Oblivion Opportunity Optimism Pain Passion Past Peace Perception Perfection Personality Perspective Pessimism Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Positive Poverty Prayer Prejudice Progress Purpose Quality Rage Reading Reality Rebellion Regret Rejection Religion Reputation Respect Risk Romance Romantic Love Romanticism Running Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sarcasm School Science Selfishness Silence Simplicity Sin Sincerity Sleep Society Solitude Sorrow Soul Spring Struggle Study Stupidity Style Success Suffering Summer Survival Sympathy Talent Tea Teaching Temptation Terror Theatre Time Tragedy Train Travel Truth Ugliness Understanding Utopia Values Virtue Vision Waiting Wall War Water Weakness Wife Wine Winning Winter Wisdom Wit Work Worship Writing Yoga Youth

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

Past, Details, Remember

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (with an Essay by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly)”, p.65, Mondial

Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.

Music, Art, Memories

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.88, Wordsworth Editions

Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.

Happiness, Success, Ambition

Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.615, Wordsworth Editions

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think.

Real, Successful, Thinking

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.7, Diversion Books

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.

Taken, Moving, Passion

Oscar Wilde (2013). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)”, p.212, Lulu Press, Inc

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Art, Work, Unique

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.270, University of Chicago Press

It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.

Gone, Worship, Compliment

Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1079, Delphi Classics

If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times

Witty, Thinking, Want

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Love, Inspirational, Life

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.103, Wordsworth Editions

Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the 'L' section, and find the word 'life.'

Meaning Of Life, Life Is, Easy

Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys.

Girl, Soccer, Football

Quoted in Alvin Redman The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (1952).

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

Love, Funny, Relationship

Oscar Wilde (2010). “Epigrams & Aphorisms”, p.56, BoD – Books on Demand

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

Women, Making Love, Way

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.21, Wordsworth Editions

The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26.911 words. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Prayer, Government, Differences

To be entirely free, and at the same time entirely dominated by law, is the eternal paradox of human life.

Law, Free Will, Paradox

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.62, Oxford University Press on Demand

She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.

Beautiful, America, Secret

Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.27, Wordsworth Editions

Beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.

Art, Philosophy, Dark Water

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.25, Oxford University Press on Demand

Good intentions have been the ruin of the world. The only people who have achieved anything have been those who have had no intentions at all.

People, World, Ruins

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.841, GENERAL PRESS

You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.

Silly, Character, London

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

Lying, Dishonesty, Speak

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.141, Oxford University Press on Demand

The final mystery is oneself... Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul.

Soul, Orbit, Finals

Letter to Alfred Douglas, Jan. - Mar. 1897

Dammit Sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't always be living for pleasure!

Funny, Marriage, Married

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

Life, Firsts, Duty

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.120, Wordsworth Editions

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Funny, Witty, Writing

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1001, Wordsworth Editions

The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died.

Girl, Gray, Died

Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.763, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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