Oscar Wilde

“He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.”

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

“In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.”

“Psycholog\xady is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.”

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

“One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.”

“I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lip.”

“Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.”

“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.”

“Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.”

“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.”

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

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

“She is a peacock in everything but beauty.”

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

“Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.”

“The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.”

“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”

“She is not a subject.”

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”

“In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.”

“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.”

“For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt.”

“'The Lady's World' should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.”

“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.”

“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.”

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

“If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.”

“Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.”

“Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.”

“Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.”

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.”

“There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.”

“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.”

“Even things that are true can be proved.”

“No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.”

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens”

“Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.”

“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.”

“There is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.”

“A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.”

“In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.”

“Good kings are the enemies of democracy.”

“I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.”

“The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.”

“Heaven is a despotism. I shall be at home there.”

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

“No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.”

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

“There are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.”

“The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.”

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

“Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.”

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

“The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.”

“Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.”

“Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.”

“Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.”

“All art is quite useless.”

“When a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.”

“Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

“If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.”

“I cannot understand your nature. If my nature had been made to suit your comprehension rather than my own requirements, I am afraid I would have made a very poor figure in the world.”

“A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.”

“To drift with every passion till my soul Which do but mar the secret of the whole.”

“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”

“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose.”

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”

“The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.”

“Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.”

“Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.”

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

“Why, what a wonderful piece of luck! Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.”

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.”

“Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”

“There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.”

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

“[E]verybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

“Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.”

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“It is always the unreadable that occurs.”

“I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.”

“Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.”

“One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.”

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

“Alas, I am dying beyond my means.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“She lives the poetry she cannot write.”

“Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.”

“Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.”

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

“London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.”

“I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.”

“The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.”

“Requiescat”

“Only the shallow know themselves.”

“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.”

“Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose.”

“There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.”

“There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”

“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.”

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

“America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.”

“Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.”

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.”

“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”

“When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.”

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”

“Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.”

“The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart.”

“I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.”

“Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.”

“I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”

“Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.”

“Oh! journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read.”

“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”

“If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.”

“One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.”

“Puritans cannot destroy a beautiful thing, yet, by means of their extraordinary prurience, they can almost taint beauty for a moment. 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.”

“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”

“In married life three is company and two none.”

“I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.”

“Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

“It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”

“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”

“Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.”

“When good Americans die they go to Paris.”

“Hatred is blind, as well as love.”

“It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.”

“A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.”

“All art is quite useless.”

“No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.”

“Action ... is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.”

“The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.”

“Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.”

“There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”

“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.”

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle.”

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

“There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.”

“It is to do nothing that the elect exist. 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.”

“There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.”

“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”

“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.”

“To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.”

“Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.”

“There is no sin except stupidity.”

“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

“Ah! Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.”

“England has done one thing; it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.”

“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.”

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

“One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”

“The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely any one at all escapes.”

“Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.”

“Charity creates a multitude of sins.”

“It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.”

“The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities.... A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions--one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true.”

“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”

“Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

“As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.”

“Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.”

“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.”

“Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.”

“Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation.”

“Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.”

“With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

“Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.”

“The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.”

“'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.”

“There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.”

“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.”

“The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.”

“Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.”

“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”

“All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

“All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.”

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

“When private property is abolished there will be no necessity for crime, no demand for it; it will cease to exist.”

“The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.”

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.”

“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.”

“Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.”

“An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft.”

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

“They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.”

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”

“To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor”

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

“The one thing that the public dislike is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses.”

“Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“And it is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologise to one in private for what they have written against one in public.”

“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.”

“In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.”

“People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous.”

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

“There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yield and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all.”

“There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.”

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.”

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

“The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands”

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.”

“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.”

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”

“I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.”

“My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.”

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

“My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.”

“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.”

“A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic?]”

“I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not.”

“For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.”

“What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.”

“There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope.”

“The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life.”

“Mrs. Allonby: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris. Lord Illingworth: Oh, they go to America.”

“The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.”

“The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”

“How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.”

“Kelvil: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons? Lord Illingworth: A much better institution of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.”

“Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.”

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

“Lord Illingworth: The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. Mrs. Allonby: It ends with Revelations.”

“Lady Hunstanton: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers? Lord Illingworth: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs.”

“Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in the man.”

“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.”

“Lord Illingworth: Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.”

“Gerald: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful? Lord Illingworth: To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy.”

“Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“She lives in the poetry she cannot write.”

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

“Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.”

“I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.”

“Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

“Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.”

“Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.”

“The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.”

“It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.”

“The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.”

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.”

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.”

“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

“To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.”

“Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.”

“Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.”

“The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.”

“Those whom the gods love grow young.”

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”

“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.”

“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.”

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“Patriotism is the vice of nations.”

“It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free.”

“Only the shallow know themselves.”

“In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.”

“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”

“If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”

“An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.”

“One should always be a little improbable.”

“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.”

“Time is a waste of money.”

“The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.”

“Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?”

“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”

“I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

“The number of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.”

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

“My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl.”

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.”

“I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.”

“The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain.”

“In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.”

“Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.”

“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.”

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune … to lose both seems like carelessness.”

“Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.”

“An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.”

“Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.”

“There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.”

“Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple. Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!”

“The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.”

“If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.”

“I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.”

“Women have no appreciation of good looks—at least, good women have not.”

“The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.”

“In married life, three is company, and two is none.”

“I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.”

“Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.”

“Punctuality is the thief of time.”

“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.”

“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.”

“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”

“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”

“But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.”

“I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.”

“Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.”

“Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”

“In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.”

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

“The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.”

“Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills.”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

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

“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

“I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.”

“No gentleman ever has any money.”

“Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes.”

“When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand.”

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

“I have a dining room done in different shades of white, with white cushions embroidered in yellow silk: the effect is absolutely delightful and the room beautiful.”

“The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.”

“The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not?”

“There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.”

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

“It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.”

“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”

“Yesterday I cut an orchid, for my buttonhole.”

“I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children.”

“She is a peacock in everything but beauty.”

“The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.”

“I have never given adoration to any body except myself.”

“Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.”

“Biography lends to death a new terror.”

“If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.”

“Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”

“To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.”

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”

“Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

“Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.”

“I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

“There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.”

“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.”

“Oh, I love London society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.”

“There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.”

“Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.”

“It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.”

“No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.”

“Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.”

“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”

“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”

“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”

“I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.”

“Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do.”

“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.”

“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.”

“I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.”

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.”

“Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb a the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.”

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

“It is always the unreadable that occurs.”

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon.”

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”

“Charity creates a multitude of sins.”

“A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.”

“Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.”

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

“Why was I born with such contemporaries?”

“The only possible society is oneself.”

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation.”

“In its primary aspect, a painting has no more spiritual message than an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass. The channels by which all noble and imaginative work in painting should touch the soul are not those of the truths of lives.”

“The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.”

“However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive.”

“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.”

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

“Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.”

“Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.”

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“Writing bores me so.”

“Lord Caversham: No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex. Lord Goring: Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.”

“Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

“The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.”

“Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.”

“Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.”

“Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.”

“Lord Goring: Now I'm gonna give you some good advice. Mrs. Cheveley: Pray don't. You should never give a woman something she can't wear in the evening”

“The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.”

“Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life. Mothers are different. Mothers are darlings.”

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

“Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.”

“Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.”

“When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.”

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”

“In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.”

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”

“If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.”

“Punctuality is the thief of time”

“True friends stab you in the front.”

“Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.”

“I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.”

“I have been right, Basil, haven’t I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare’s plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth.”

“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.”

“Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.”

“Now don't stir. I'll be back in five minutes. And don't fall into any temptations while I am away.”

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

“A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.”

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

“Everything popular is wrong.”

“The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.”

“A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it.”

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

“Only good questions deserve good answers.”

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

“It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.”

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.”

“The supreme vice is shallowness.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

“We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour.”

“When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.”

“We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.”

“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”

“When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?”

“Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.”

“It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.”

“Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.”

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”

“The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.”

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

“It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”

“For a sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.”

“Who, being loved, is poor?”

“All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death;”

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“I never saw a man who looked Which prisoners call the sky.”

“I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.”

“When a voice behind me whispered low, "That fellow's got to swing."”

“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves The brave man with a sword!”

“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”

“It is sweet to dance to violins To dance upon the air!”

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

“If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.”

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

“For Man's grim Justice goes its way, The monstrous parricide!”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“Nichts Interessantes ist jemals richtig.”

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”

“For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.”

“Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

“Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.”

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”

“And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, More deaths than one must die.”

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”

“I know not whether Laws be right, A year whose days are long.”

“I can resist everything except temptation.”

“The vilest deeds like poison weeds And the Warder is Despair.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

“And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity's machine.”

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”

“How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?”

“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.”

“I know not whether Laws be right, A year whose days are long.”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

“This too I know—and wise it were How men their brothers maim.”

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”

“The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.”

“The vilest deeds like poison weeds And the Warder is Despair.”

“One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.”

“Women are made to be loved, not understood.”

“The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.”

“There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.”

“Tread Lightly, she is near The daisies grow.”

“An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.”

“Lo! with a little rod And must I lose a soul's inheritance?”

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“If it took Labouchere three columns to prove that I was forgotten, then there is no difference between fame and obscurity.”

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.”

“And down the long and silent street, Crept like a frightened girl.”

“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

“True friends stab you in the front.”

“Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.”

“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

“I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

“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.”

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

“Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.”

“It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.”

“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.”

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.”

“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.”

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

“A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.”

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

“And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

“Requiescat”

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.”

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”

“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.”

“Those whom the gods love grow young.”

“All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.”

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

“The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.”

“Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”

“Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“All art is immoral.”

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

“He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.”

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

“Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”

“Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.”

“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”

“On George Bernard Shaw An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.”

“There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.”

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.”

“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

“I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

“While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.”

“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”

“One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.”

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

“No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.”

“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.”

“It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.”

“If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.”

“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.”

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

“Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.”

“Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.”

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

“Tell me, when you are alone with him [ Max Beerbohm ] Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?”

“Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.”

“I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”

“One can survive everything nowadays except death.”

“How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.”

“There is no sin except stupidity.”