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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 61

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

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.

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.

Funny, Anniversary, Sweet

Oscar Wilde (2016). “A Critic in Pall Mall”, p.227, Oscar Wilde

My friend is not allowed to go out today. I sit by his side and read him passages from his own life. They fill him with surprise. Everyone should keep someone else's diary; I sometimes suspect you of keeping mine.

Diaries, Today, Sides

Oscar Wilde (1962). “Letters”

It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable.

Oscar Wilde (2014). “Wilde Complete Plays: Lady Windermere's Fan; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest; A Woman of No Importance; Salome; The Duchess of Padua; Vera, or the Nihilists; A Florentine Tragedy; La Sainte Courtisane”, p.137, Bloomsbury Publishing

The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. He was invented by Turgenev, and completed by Dostoevsky. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau as surely as the People's Palace rose out debris of a novel. Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.

Believe, People, Rose

Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.159, Wordsworth Editions

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

Cuffs, Muffins, Importance Of Being Earnest

Charles Osborne, Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Novel for Serious People”, p.100, St. Martin's Press

Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.

Husband, Women, Grief

The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 15 (1891). A similar quotation appears inWilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest, act 1 (1895).

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Art, Peril, Beneath The Surface

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.6, First Avenue Editions

Immanuel isn't a pun; he Kant be!

Pun

I can resist anything but the temptation to make a clever witticism.

Clever, Temptation, Resistance

Music is the perfect type of art.

Music, Art, Perfect

Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (2008). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.265, Oxford University Press

It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression.

Art, Expression, May

Art, like Nature, has her monsters

Art, Monsters

Oscar Wilde, Moira Muldoon (2005). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings”, p.145, Simon and Schuster

Nature, which makes nothing durable, always repeats itself so that nothing which it makes may be lost.

May, Lost, Repeats

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.223, Wordsworth Editions

Shakespeare might have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the white streets of London, or seen the serving-men of rival houses bite their thumbs at each other in the open square; but Hamlet came out of his soul, and Romeo out of his passion.

Passion, Men, White

Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1491, Delphi Classics

Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve them.

Exercise, Men, Class

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1044, Wordsworth Editions

Authority is quite degrading.

Authority, Degrading

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

In one dancing saloon I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'

Art, Piano, America

Oscar Wilde, Matthew Hofer, Gary Scharnhorst (2010). “Oscar Wilde in America: The Interviews”, p.180, University of Illinois Press

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne.

Champagne Drinking, Drinking Champagne, Bachelors

Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.2

The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar.

Law, Practice, Sublime

How strange a thing this is! The Priest telleth me that the Soul is worth all the gold in the world, and the merchants say that it is not worth a clipped piece of silver.

Soul, Gold, Pieces

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.230, GENERAL PRESS

He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood.

Love, Passion, Mad

Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.80, Xist Publishing

If only the picture could grow old, and I stay young. For that...for that, I would give my SOUL for that.

Vanity, Giving, Soul

The birds did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.

Wise, Bird, Understanding

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.178, GENERAL PRESS

Now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.

Art, Thinking, Long

Oscar Wilde (2014). “Le Portrait de Dorian Gray / The Picture of Dorian Gray: Édition bilingue: français - anglais / Bilingual Edition: French - English”, p.196, BookRix

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

Stars, Science, Moon

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.665, GENERAL PRESS

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