Quotes by Oscar Wilde

“I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but youre twenty minutes.”

“No matter how good she looks - no matter how sweet she talks - somebody, somewhere is sick and tired of putting up with her shit.”

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read”

“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”

“When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.”

“O Queen of air and darkness,I think tis truth you say,And I shall die to-morrow;But you will die to-day.”

“Never use a cannon to kill a fly.”

“(Democracy is a government) of the fools, for the fools, by the fools.”

“A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.”

“I was sued by a woman who claimed that she became pregnant because she watched me on television and I bent her contraceptive coil.”

“I may have said the same thing before...but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different.”

“Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.”

“Beautiful things like beautiful sins belong to the rich,”

“(To Lucrezia Borgia) Do people say that I am both your father and your lover? Let the world, that heap of vermin as ridiculous as they are feeble-minded, believe the most absurd tales about the mighty! You must know that for those destined to dominate others, the ordinary rules of life are turned upside down and duty aquires an entirely new meaning. Good and evil are carried off to a higher, different plane.”

“One has too much on ones plate to have friends as well.”

“Isnt it only natural to leave a place where one is so bitterly hated?...The heroism involved in staying put in spite of it all is the heroism of a cockroach, which also wont be driven out of the bathroom.”

“When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majorities because they are supported by the approval of their neighbors. It’s not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.”

Never love anyone who treats you like youre ordinary.

The heart was made to be broken.

Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be heardSome do it with a bitter lookSome with a flattering wordThe coward does it with a kissThe brave man with a sword