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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 38

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

My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth; I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important.

My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth; I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important.

Important, Said, Young

Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.242, Wordsworth Editions

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Funny, Humor, Two Nations

The Canterville Ghost pt. 1 (1887) See George Bernard Shaw 58

It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it.

Beautiful, Spiritual, Perfect

Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Importance of Being Earnest: Revised Edition”, p.18, Bloomsbury Publishing

Youth is the only thing worth having.

Honesty, Youth, Facing The Truth

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.30, Oxford University Press on Demand

The one advantage of playing with fire...is that no one ever gets singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.

Fun, Fire, Play

Oscar Wilde, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Lady Wilde, Henry Zick (1909). “The Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde: What never dies”

While to the claims of charity a man may yield and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all.

Men, Yield, Charity

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1049, Wordsworth Editions

What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colorless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.

Race, Rejection, Curiosity

Oscar Wilde (1908). “Intentions”

Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishment on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realize what it has done. When the man's punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins.

Men, Vices, Done

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.101, Oxford University Press on Demand

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Fashion, Husband, Vulgarity Is

"Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (1894)

Medievalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods - Medievalism is real Christianity, and the medieval Christ is the real Christ.

Real, Passion, Self

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.109, Wordsworth Editions

We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim - objects press around us, filling the mind with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.

Life, Death, Waiting

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work when there is no definite object of any kind. To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing.

Hard Work, Mind, Doing Nothing

"The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays".

One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Time, Past, People

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.27, Wordsworth Editions

I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who be in jail Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.

Witty, Strong, Wall

The Ballad of Reading Gaol pt. 5, st. 1 (1898)

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

Fate, Curves, Ivory

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.152, Wordsworth Editions

Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

Mean, Weather, People

Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.25

When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

Respect, Men, Names

Oscar Wilde (2014). “Epigrams and Aphorisms”, p.57, BoD – Books on Demand

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Spring, Book, Reading

Oscar Wilde (2005). “The Prose of Oscar Wilde”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the soul alone are shameful.

Soul, Physicians, Flesh

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.171, Wordsworth Editions

This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.

Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.

Country, Flower, People

Oscar Wilde (2012). “Epigrams”, p.47, BoD – Books on Demand

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Funny, Sarcastic, Unbearable

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.30, Wordsworth Editions

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Funny, Writing, Humor

Oscar Wilde (1947). “The Happy Prince”, p.16, New Line Publishing

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Art, Passion, Joy

An actor is part illusionist, part artist, part ham.

Artist, Theatre, Actors

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