Oscar Wilde

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

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

“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.”

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

“Lord AUGUSTUS:(looking around) Time to educate yourself, I suppose.DUMBY: No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important.”

“I feel that if I kept it secret it might grow in my mind (as poisonous things grow in the dark) and take its place with the other terrible thoughts that gnaw me”

“A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice.”

“If people are dishonest once, they will be dishonest a second time. And honest people should keep away from them. (Lady Chiltern)”

“Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.”

“The English novels are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. But one should not be too severe on them. They show a want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study.”

“The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding. The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married. One should always be in love - that's the reason one should never marry.”

“One knows so well the popular idea of health: the English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the unbeatable.”

“You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid.”

“I am sorry my life is so marred and maimed by extravagance. But I cannot live otherwise. I, at any rate, pay the penalty of suffering.”

“I wish i could write them down, these little coloured parables or poems that live for a moment in some cell of my brain, and then leave it to go wandering elsewhere. I hate writing; the mere act of writing a thing down is troublesome to me. I want some fine medium, and look for it in vain.”

“My friend is not allowed to go out today. I sit by his side and read him passages from his own life. They fill him with surprise. Everyone should keep someone else's diary; I sometimes suspect you of keeping mine.”

“When the prurient and the impotent attack you, be sure you are right.”

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”

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

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

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

“La bigamia è avere una moglie di troppo. La monogamia lo stesso.”

“Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.”

“If you want to be a doormat you have to lay yourself down first.”

“How clever are you, my dear! You never mean a single word you say!”

“You are more to me than any of them has any idea; you are the atmosphere of beauty through which I see life; you are the incarnation of all lovely things...I think of you day and night. ~ Letter to Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas”

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.”

“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.”

“Each man kills the thing he loves.”

“Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worse habits.”

“When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.”

“Oh! I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.”

“Ehrgeiz ist die letzte Zuflucht des Versagers”

“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”

“It is only the sacred things that are worth touching”

“If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.”

“I felt that this grey, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners and its splendid sins”

“There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.”

“I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.”

“Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead?”

“It would be more impressive if it flowed the other way (Commenting on Niagara Falls)”

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

“The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faultsand all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet ofclay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love themknowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them allthe more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect,who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands,or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what useis love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. Alllives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that.It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that theyare making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idolsmerely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage tocome down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraidthat I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.”

“Mi bella princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity; for he is so ugly that he might have made the King smile. 'But why will he never dance again?' asked the Infanta laughing. “Because his heart is broken”, answered the Chamberlain.”

“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose“, cried the Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. “ It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent oft he hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man? ”

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

“The people who love only 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 failure.”

“But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.”

“Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.”

“The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.”