Oscar Wilde Quotes
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The worst of it is that I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books away from me. It's perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be livable -- any life.
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This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
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Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb a the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.
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Do you know that I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world? Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.
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It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.
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She is a peacock in everything but beauty.
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To toil for a hard master is bitter, but to have no master to toil for is more bitter still.
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Do you smoke? Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. I'm glad to hear of it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.
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Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
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When a golden girl can win Prayer from out the lips of sin, When the barren almond bears, And a little child gives away its tears, Then shall all the house be still And peace come to Canterville.
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The only real people are the people who never existed.
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I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.
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It is he who has broken the bond of marriage - not I. I only break its bondage.
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On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners.
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Just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising and lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler.
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You told me you had destroyed it. I was wrong. It has destroyed me.
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They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.
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To define is to limit.
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The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.
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A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection.
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Why, what a wonderful piece of luck! Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.
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The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.
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Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic — a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.
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When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.