Oscar Wilde Quotes

Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go.

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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 This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

I can resist everything except temptation.

~ Oscar Wilde

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.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

~ Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.

~ Oscar Wilde

True friends stab you in the front.

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde

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

~ Oscar Wilde