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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 52

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

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

Funny, Beauty, Beautiful

Oscar Wilde (2015). “Essays and Lectures: Top Essays”, p.91, 谷月社

The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.

Intelligent, Play, Intelligence

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.815, GENERAL PRESS

To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.

Fear, Exercise, Power

Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.

Sympathy, Pain, Joy

Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.65, Oscar Wilde

True love is just like regular love, but with more truth.

Love Is, True Love Is

A process which makes one rogue cleverer than another.

Education, Rogues, Process

It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure.

Successful, Men, Vanity

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

An entirely new factor has appeared in the social development of the country, and this factor is the Irish-American, and his influence. To mature its powers, to concentrate its action, to learn the secret of its own strength and of England's weakness, the Celtic intellect has had to cross the Atlantic. At home it had but learned the pathetic weakness of nationality; in a strange land it realised what indomitable forces nationality possesses. What captivity was to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish: America and American influence have educated them.

Country, Home, America

one pale woman all alone, The daylight kissing her wan hair, Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare, With lips of flame and heart of stone.

Women, Heart, Kissing

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.153, Oxford University Press on Demand

A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes, it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

Beautiful, Mother, Pain

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.36, GENERAL PRESS

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

Vulgarity Is, Two, Facts

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.156, Oxford University Press on Demand

The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

Art, Stupid, Hands

Oscar Wilde (2018). “Oscar Wilde Collection”, p.11, Youcanprint

The job of the critic is to report to us his moods.

Jobs, Editors, Mood

For, try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearence of things to reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in the things apart from their appearences.

Reality, Trying, May

Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it

Pessimism, Modern

Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.439, Courier Dover Publications

Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss.

Kings, Loss, Moon

Oscar Wilde (1909). “Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde”

Lean on principles, one day they'll end up giving way.

Giving, One Day, Principles

Never so sweet a repast as the Reaper's when you tread upon the threshold of a Quiznos.

Sweet, Threshold, Reaper

London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.

Husband, Women, Unhappy

Oscar Wilde (2008). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays: Lady Windermere's Fan; Salome; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.24, OUP Oxford

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

Greatness, Mediocrity, Pay

I expect I shall have to die beyond my means.

Mean, Last Words, Dies

Said when a huge fee for an operation was mentioned, in R. H. Sherard 'Life of Oscar Wilde' (1906) p. 421

Don't tell me that you have exhausted Life. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.

Men, Exhausted, Ennui

Quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946)

Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.

Greatness, Sorrow, Shallow

Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.173, Xist Publishing

To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that.

Single Mom, Risk, Weakness

Oscar Wilde (2015). “An Ideal Husband”, p.40, Sheba Blake Publishing

I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.

Wine, Soul, Sound

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.109, Oxford University Press on Demand

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