Quotes by Oscar Wilde

Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.

Ah! that is the great thing in life, to live the truth.

I dont want to earn a living, I want to live.

Within this restless, hurried, modern worldWe took our hearts full pleasure - You and I,And now the white sails of our ship are furled,And spent the lading of our argosy.Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,For very weeping is my gladness fled,Sorrow has paled my young mouths vermilion,And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.But all this crowded life has been to theeNo more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spellOf viols, or the music of the seaThat sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.

I have forgotten all about my school days. I have a vague impression that they were detestable.

There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature.

I can write no stately proemAs a prelude to my lay;From a poet to a poemI would dare to say.For if of these fallen petalsOne to you seem fair,Love will waft it till it settlesOn your hair.And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand.

There was something tragic in a friendship so colored by romance.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast,

this woman is a genius in the day time and a beauty at night

Never mind what I say. I am always saying what I shouldnt say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.

My doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven [oclock]. It makes me talk in my sleep.

Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak? Do you really think, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all ones life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not-there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, terrible courage. I had that courage.

Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A mans life is of more value than a womans. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A womens life revolves around curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that mans life progresses. Dont make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a mans love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.

The pure and simple truth is, the truth is never pure and simple.

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.Vice and virtue are the artist’s materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feelings, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectators, and not life, that art really mirrors.

He was a man of most subtle and refined intellect. A man of culture, charm, and distinction. One of the most intellectual men I ever met.I prefer a gentlemanly fool any day. There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I suppose.

the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failure. a

The drawback of stealing a thing, is that one never knows how wonderful the thing that one steals is.