Oscar Wilde

“Each narrow cell in which we dwellIs a foul and dark latrine,And the fetid breath of living DeathChokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity's machine.”

“The pen is mightier than the paving-stone”

“There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late”

“My dear boy, the people who only love once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—simply a confession of failures.”

“Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are.”

“There is no error more common than that of thinking that those who are the causes or occasions of great tragedies share in the feelings suitable to the tragic mood: no error more fatal than expecting it of them. The martyr in his 'shirt of flame' may be looking on the face of God, but to him who is piling the faggots or loosening the logs for the blast the whole scene is no more than the slaying of an ox is to the butcher, or the felling of a tree to the charcoal burner in the forest, or the fall of a flower to one who is mowing down the grass with a scythe. Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them.”

“You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.”

“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.”

“I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.”

“resist nothing but temptation”

“I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old.”

“And at my feet the pale green ThamesLies like a rod of rippled jade.”

“Against these turbid turquoise skiesThe light and luminous blloonsDip and drift like satin moons,Drift like silken butterflies”

“Sweet, there is nothing left to sayBut this, that love is never lost”

“But surely it is something to have beenThe best beloved for a little while,To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seenHis purple wings flit once across thy smile.”

“Her ivory hands on the ivory keysStrayed in a fitful fantasy,Like the silver gleam when the poplar treesRustle their pale leaves listlessly,Or the drifting foam of a restless seaWhen the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.”

“Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay”

“I think thy spirit hath passed away From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers; This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey”

“O wandering graves! O restless sleep!O silence of the sunless day!O still ravine! O stormy deep!Give up your prey! Give up your prey!”

“For not in quiet English fieldsAre these, our brothers, lain to rest,Where we might deck their broken shieldsWith all the flowers the dead love best.”

“The Love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.”

“She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.”

“Skepticism is the beginning of faith.”

“As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.”

“LADY BRACKNELLThirty-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. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now.”

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

“LADY BRACKNELLTo 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.”

“If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbroker's do that, and then merely at dinner parties.”

“Even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less then Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable.”

“I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.”

“JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.”

“And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.”

“I have a business appointment that I am anxious... to miss.”

“In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.”

“MISS PRISMMemory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

“I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane.It never is, sir.Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.”

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

“Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd.”

“LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.ALGERNONI hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.”

“JACKThat 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.ALGERNONThen your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.JACKThat, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.ALGERNONYes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.”

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

“Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.”

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

“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.”

“Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.”

“I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself do not interest me. The have not got the charm of novelty.”

“Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon... I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon.What did he die of?Bunbury? Oh, he was exploded!”

“En la guerra los fuertes hacen esclavos a los débiles, y en la paz los ricos hacen esclavos a los pobres.”

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

“Lord Henry looked serious for some moments, 'It is perfectly monstrous,' he said at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutley and entirely true.”