Oscar Wilde Quotes
The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.
Quotes to Explore
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The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never.
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Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.
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Love is a misunderstanding between two fools.
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The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.
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Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
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I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
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I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
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There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
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Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
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A man who marries his mistress leaves a vacancy in that position.
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The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
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The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
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Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them.
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I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
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It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.
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If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.
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Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
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Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.
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An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
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The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
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Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.
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What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.