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Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 74

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

You know I have loved him always. But we are very poor. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden.

You know I have loved him always. But we are very poor. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden.

Hate, Riches, Poor

Oscar Wilde, Peter Raby (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.151, Oxford Paperbacks

Education is an admirable thing.

Admirable

Epigrams: Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young Sebastian Melmoth

It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Regret, Ignorance, Modern Journalism

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1005, Wordsworth Editions

In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

People, Trying, Breakfast

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.603, Wordsworth Editions

Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world - it dreams away its life in the Conca d'Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.

Dream, Lying, Garden

Oscar Wilde (1962). “Letters”

Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.

Beautiful, Fashion, Art

I am Irish by race but the English have condemned me to talk the language of Shakespeare.

Race, Language

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public to him are non-existent.

Artist, True Artists

Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.81, Courier Corporation

To be popular I must be mediocre.

Mediocre

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough.

Speak, Should, Know How

Oscar Wilde (2014). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays”, p.63, Simon and Schuster

The people who have adored me-- there have not been very many, but there have been some-- have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me.

Long, People, Care

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.121, First Avenue Editions

There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses.

Memories, Passion, Pride

Oscar Wilde (2010). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.169, Bibliolis Books

"Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information." "I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand." "Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?" "I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person."

Believe, Wine, Heaven

"The Importance of Being Earnest".

Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.

Girl, Flirting, Men

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1343, GENERAL PRESS

To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.

Monday, Week, Enough

Oscar Wilde (1994). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.8, Heinemann

JACK That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury. ALGERNON Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. ALGERNON Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

Girl, Drama, Home

Oscar Wilde, Peter Raby (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.259, Oxford Paperbacks

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that.

Attitude, Enough, Immoral

Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.22, Xist Publishing

JACK Your duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNON My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.

Gentleman, Degrees, Pleasure

Oscar Wilde (1994). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.38, Heinemann

LADY BRACKNELL Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?

Men, Desire, Looks

Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.135

Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.

Pay, Compliment, Pleasant

Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.166, Wordsworth Editions

God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.

Plato, Men, Oxford

"In Victorian Days and Other Papers" by Sir David Oswald Hunter-Blair, New York: Longmans, (p. 122), 1939.

We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, that fire can purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all.

Inspirational, Mother, Fire

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.152, Oxford University Press on Demand

In England ... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Education, Squares, Class

Oscar Wilde (1994). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.16, Heinemann

The only form of fiction in which real characters do not seem out of place is history. In novels they are detestable.

Real, Character, History

Oscar Wilde (2014). “A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.

Drama, Play, Literature

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.70, Wordsworth Editions

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