Oscar Wilde Quotes

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Pessimist - one who when he has the choice of two evils chooses both.

~ Oscar Wilde

A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.

~ Oscar Wilde

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible not the invisible.

~ Oscar Wilde

A true gentlemen is one who is never unintentionally rude.

~ Oscar Wilde

Only the shallow know themselves.

~ Oscar Wilde

It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.

~ Oscar Wilde

It is not the prisoners who need reformation it is the prisons.

~ Oscar Wilde

My great mistake the fault for which I can't forgive myself is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.

~ Oscar Wilde

Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern one is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.

~ Oscar Wilde

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.

~ Oscar Wilde

I've put my genius into my life I've only put my talent into my works.

~ Oscar Wilde

Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.

~ Oscar Wilde

Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss.

~ Oscar Wilde

Art, like Nature, has her monsters

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?GWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest.JACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

To influence a person is to give him one's own soul.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Biography lends to death a new terror.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde