Oscar Wilde Quotes
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Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
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He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
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The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
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Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.
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Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
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Irony is wasted on the stupid.
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It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.
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Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.
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There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.
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I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one's life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon's head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.
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I can't stand people that do not take food seriously.
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A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
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The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
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Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.
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The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity.
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It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
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Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing.
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Intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing.
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Full frontal nudity is reserved for Adam and Eve!
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Youth is the only thing worth having.
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Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
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There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
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One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.