Oscar Wilde Quotes
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I have a business appointment that I am anxious... to miss.
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The gaudy leonine sunflower Hangs black and barren on its stalk, And down the windy garden walk The dead leaves scatter,- hour by hour.
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His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.
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Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
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We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.
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To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
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When people talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves they are nearly always interesting.
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On refusing to make alterations to one of his plays: Who am I to tamper with a masterpiece?
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Civilisation is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.
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I walk the world in wonder.
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Before Turner there was no fog in London.
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Oh, no doubt the cod is a splendid swimmer - admirable for swimming purposes but not for eating.
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Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you.
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And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.
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It is personalities not principles that move the age.
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Music is the perfect type of art.
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The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and not intellectual.
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It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.
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Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
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You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.
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The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
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God, bless me with luxury. Necessities I can do without.
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Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age.
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As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.