Oscar Wilde Quotes
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There is no such thing as a heterosexual male, only men who haven't met Oscar Wilde yet.
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It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes.
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I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don’t interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.
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The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.
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I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips.
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I have pleasures, and passions, but the joy of life is gone. I am going under: the morgue yawns for me. I go and look at my zinc-bed there. After all, I had a wonderful life, which is, I fear, over.
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I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
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Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne.
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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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To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
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Walt Whitman and Emerson are the poets who have given the world more than anyone else. Perhaps Whitman is not so widely read in England, but England never appreciates a poet until he is dead.
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An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.
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If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.
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People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
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After a good quality dinner one will be able to forgive anybody, still one's own relations.
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One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.
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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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Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.
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For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us.
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People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.
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The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.
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Beautiful things like beautiful sins belong to the rich.
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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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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.