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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 69

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

The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

Art, Perfect, Use

'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1891) preface

If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.

Art, Special, Critics

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.9, University of Chicago Press

A beggar hates his benefactor as much as he hates himself for begging.

Hate, Charity, Begging

Artists reproduce themselves or each other, with wearisome iteration. But criticism is always moving on, and the critic is always developing.

Moving, Artist, Criticism

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.390, University of Chicago Press

Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.

Dream, Loneliness, Vision

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The critic as artist (low cost). Limited edition”, p.54, Oscar Wilde

Children have a natural antipathy to books- handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.

Girl, Education, Children

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.11, University of Chicago Press

Every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

Brother, Men, Bars

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.213, Oxford University Press on Demand

Perhaps one never seems so much at ones ease as when one has to play a part.

Inspirational, Play, Ease

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.133, GENERAL PRESS

Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore.

Sides, Sincerity, Bores

Oscar Wilde (2000). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.9, OUP Oxford

Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation.

People, Suffering, Phrases

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.105, Oxford University Press on Demand

There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America.

Country, America, Lovely

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.7, University of Chicago Press

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

Dog, Artist, Tragedy

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.824, GENERAL PRESS

No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide. I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.

Book, Men, Criticism

The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

Men, Ideas, Intellectual

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.15, Lulu Press, Inc

The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

Children, Mean, Men

Oscar Wilde (1988). “The complete plays”, Methuen Drama

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.

Selfish, Men, Thinking

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.285, University of Chicago Press

The evil that machinery is doing is not merely in the consequence of its work but in the fact that it makes men themselves machines also.

Men, Evil, Machines

To elope is cowardly; it is running away from danger; and danger has become so rare in modern life.

Running, Modern Life, Danger

Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.16, Oscar Wilde

Newspapers. . . give us the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They chronicle, with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate, and with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic details. . .

Giving, Facts, Details

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.697, GENERAL PRESS

Things are in their essence what we choose to make them. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it.

Essence, Events, Looks

Oscar Wilde (1973). “De Profundis and Other Writings”, p.264, Penguin UK

Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. Life makes us pay too high a price for its wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets at a cost that is monstrous and infinite.

Secret, Cost, Pay

Oscar Wilde (1930). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Importance of Being Earnest ; The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Works of Oscar Wilde”

It is difficult not to be unjust to what one loves.

Unjust, One Love, Difficult

Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.32, Oscar Wilde

Nature constantly imitates art.

Art

To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour

Self, Ruined, Poetry Is

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.47, GENERAL PRESS

Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent.

Humor, Law, Clients

Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.143, Wordsworth Editions

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