Oscar Wilde Quotes
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I can't stand people that do not take food seriously.
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All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.
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It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
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I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.
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Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!
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To be entirely free, and at the same time, entirely dominated by law, is the eternal paradox of human life that we realise at every moment.
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As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.
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Cultivated leisure is the aim of man.
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Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
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It was only in the theatre that I lived.
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I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
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The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.
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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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Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.
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America is not a country, it is a world.
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Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
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Don't be discouraged if your children reject your advice. Years later they will offer it to their own offspring.
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The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.
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Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
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Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
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Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
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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.
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The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.
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It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.