Oscar Wilde

“The 19thc hatred of Realism is Caliban's enraged reaction to seeing his own face in the mirror. The 19thc rejection of Romanticism is Caliban's fury at not seeing his face reflected in the mirror.”

“The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives.”

“Soñador es aquel que sólo encuentra su camino a la luz de la luna y cuyo castigo es ver el alba antes que el resto del mundo.”

“I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life…”

“We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”

“Most people are boring and stupid.”

“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”

“Women treat us [men] like humanity treats gods—they worship us and keep bothering us to do something for them.”

“We know not whether laws be right Or whether laws be wrong All we know who lie in gaol Is that the walls are strong And each day is like a year A year whose days are long.”

“Those who go beneath the surface, do so at their peril.”

“There is a luxury in self-reproach.”

“What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.”

“The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.”

“The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.”

“Most personalities have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in friction.”

“The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence.”

“When they entered they found, hanging upon the wall, a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognised who it was.”

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

“You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of color in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play. I tell you Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.”

“I never change.MRS. CHEVELEY: (elevating her eyebrows) Then life has taught you nothing?LADY CHILTERN: It has taught me that a person who has once been guilty of a dishonest and dishonorable action may be guilty of it a second time, and should be shunned.MRS. CHEVELEY: Whould that rule apply to everyone?LADY CHILTERN: Yes, to everyone, without exception.MRS. CHEVELEY: Then I am sorry for you, Gertrude, very sorry for you.”

“LORD GORING: ... All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may.”

“LORD GORING: (after a long pause) Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing.”

“You know I have loved him always.But we are very poor.Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden...”

“Only love can keep anyone alive...”

“No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman's bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.”

“Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.”

“I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules.”

“Do you know that I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world? Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.”

“Miss Prism: ... And you do not seem to reealize, dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a man coverts himself into a permanent public temptation. ...Chausuble: But is a man not equally attractive when married?Miss Prism: No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.Chausuble: And often, I´ve been told, not even to her.”

“I have given away my whole soul to some one 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.”

“I did not want any external influence in my life. You know how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.”

“There is an unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous.”

“Das wirkliche Leben war Chaos, aber es lag eine schreckliche Logik in der Phantasie.”

“The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities.... A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewildered that they always use two stupid expressions--one is that the work of art is grossly unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral. What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true.”

“The birds did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.”

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“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.”

“He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes 'with collars of real emeralds growing on their backs.' There was a gem in the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and 'by the exhibition of golden letters and a scarlet robe' the monster could be thrown into a magical sleep and slain. According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her color. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids. Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a newly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The bezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm that could cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the aspirates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any danger by fire.”

“Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.”

“The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.”

“And each man kills the thing he loves.”

“It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." - Oscar Wilde (Chuck Palahniuk - Pygmy)”

“LORD ILLINGWORTH: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.MRS ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”

“a beleza, a verdadeira beleza, acaba onde a expressão intelectual começa. O intelecto é já uma forma de exagero e destrói a harmonia de qualquer rosto.”

“The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.”

“It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.”

“He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression...”

“He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering.”

“There seemed to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.”

“I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.”