“Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.”

“I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing. ”

“Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.”

“Sometime you will find, even as I have found, that there is no such thing as romantic experience; there are romantic memories, and there is the desire of romance- that is all. Our most fiery moments of ecstasy are merely shadows of what somewhere else we have felt, or of what we long someday to feel”

“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?”

“Jack: “Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?”Gwendolen: “I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.”

“I must confess that most modern mysticism seems to me to be simply a method of imparting useless knowledge in a form that no one can understand”