Oscar Wilde Quotes
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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 spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.
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Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.
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Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.
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For, try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearence of things to reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in the things apart from their appearences.
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One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
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The final mystery is oneself.
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And if it feels good... Feel it!
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We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.
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What is said of a man is nothing. The point is, who says it.
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Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.
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The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We woman have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
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We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour.
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Is she such a mystery? She is more than a mystery - she is a mood. Moods don't last. It is their chief charm.
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Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
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You can never be overdressed or overeducated.
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In its primary aspect, a painting has no more spiritual message than an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass. The channels by which all noble and imaginative work in painting should touch the soul are not those of the truths of lives.
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You can fake intelligence, but you can't fake wit.
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The world has been made by fools that men should live in it.
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Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
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Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
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London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
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Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
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I can resist anything but the temptation to make a clever witticism.