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Oscar Wilde Quotes about Lying

All Oscar Wilde 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 quotes 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

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.

Lying, Love You, Heart

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

Regret, Lying, Soul

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.100, Oxford University Press on Demand

History is a lie commonly agreed upon.

Lying

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. It seeks to show new perspectives and other choices. It is a way to help expand and liberate the consciousness; our experiences, understandings, imaginings, options and thereby our lives.

Art, Lying, Men

"The Soul of Man under Socialism". Book by Oscar Wilde, 1891.

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

Inspirational, Lying, Men

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

Beautiful, Art, Lying

Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.60, Courier Corporation

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

Lying, Dishonesty, Speak

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.141, Oxford University Press on Demand

Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

Lying, Literature, Imaginative

Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

Lying, Passion, Men

Oscar Wilde (2014). “A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

The security of Society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of Society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members.

Lying, Healthy, Absence

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.693, GENERAL PRESS

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Truth, Lying, Simple

Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.368, Wordsworth Editions

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.

Lying, Perspective, Healthy

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.222, University of Chicago Press

The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.

Liars, Lying, Stories

Oscar Wilde (2014). “A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies”, p.60, Simon and Schuster

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

Art, Lying, Duty

Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.447, Courier Dover Publications

The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature.

Country, Lying, Hero

Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.304, University of Chicago Press

The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and not intellectual.

Real, Lying, Emotional

Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1489, Delphi Classics

Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of environment, and the dullness of tutors and professors matters very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the strange snakespotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon smite to a finer gold the tower's gilded vanes, or wander up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling's shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured gateway of Laud's building in the College of St. John.

Lying, College, Oxford

Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.231, Wordsworth Editions

As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.

Music, Lying, Liars

Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (2008). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.218, Oxford University Press

The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.

Lying, Sake, Form

Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.942, Wordsworth Editions

Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your affection is inside of you.

Lying, Perfection, Affection

Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1039, GENERAL PRESS

People seldom tell the truths that are worth telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our lies and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon the selection of our enemies.

Lying, People, Enemy

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.197, Wordsworth Editions

Imagination is imitative-the real innovation lies in criticism.

Real, Lying, Imagination

Punctuality is the thief of time

Time, Work, Lying

Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.222, Wordsworth Editions

When he takes the knife to the canvass the servants find him lying dead with a knife through is heart and "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage." and the portrait "in all the wonders of his exquisite youth and beauty." p 349

Lying, Heart, Knives

Requiescat Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast, I vex my heart alone She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life’s buried here, Heap earth upon it.

Lying, Heart, White

Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.5, Oxford University Press on Demand

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