Oscar Wilde Quotes
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Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.
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There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.
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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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My life-my whole life- take it, and do with it what you will. I love you-love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly,madly! You didn't know it then-you know it now.
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Every impulse we strangle will only poison us.
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Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
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Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?
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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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When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
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The best art is about individualism, free self-expression and realising a unique, imaginative perspective- A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.
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It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.
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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.
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It is personalities not principles that move the age.
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Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.
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Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.
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If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression that gives reality to things.
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Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined.
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Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be.
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People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
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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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For one moment our lives met, our souls touched.
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They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.
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Oh, I love London society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.