Best of the Oscar Wilde Quotes #3

« Best of the Oscar Wilde Quotes #2

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is so dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.

In married life, three is company and two none.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But… it is better to be good than to be ugly.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one’s back, that are absolutely and entirely true.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection.

It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.

Life is a pilgrimage. The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.

Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

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.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.

Music makes one feel so romantic – at least it always gets on one’s nerves – which is the same thing nowadays.

My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself, is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.

My own business always bore’s me to death; I prefer other people’s.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.

Of course I have played outdoor games. I once played dominoes in an open air cafe in Paris.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age; a woman who would tell one would tell one anything.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.