Quotes by Oscar Wilde

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

We all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.

LADY BRACKNELLTo speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each others character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they dont love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.

Punctuality is the thief of time

Time is a waste of money.

The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.

Punctuality is the thief of time.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.

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

It is what you read when you dont have to that determines what you will be when you cant help it.

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

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The worst of it is that I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books away from me. Its perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be livable -- any life.

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.American novels, answered Lord Henry.