Oscar Wilde

“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

“Only the shallow know themselves”

“Nowadays 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.”

“Punctuality is the thief of time”

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

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”

“I never change, except in my affections.”

“Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.”

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

“This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?Algernon. Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.Jack. Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here.Algernon. That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.”

“You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.”

“Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.”

“I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.”

“My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!”

“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. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.”

“When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.”

“Yes, death. 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 to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”

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

“The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.”

“Hearts are made to be broken.”

“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”

“An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.”

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”

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

“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. (Mr. Dumby, Act III)”

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.”

“Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.”

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

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

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

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”

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

“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”

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

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

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.”

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

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

“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.”

“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

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

“Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

“Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never happened or couldn't possibly have happened.”

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

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

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

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

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

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