Oscar Wilde Quotes
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The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence.
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Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.
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Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything, and when they grow older they know it.
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By the artificial separation of soul and body men have invented a Realism that is vulgar and an Idealism that is void.
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I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.
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It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair:To dance to flutes, to dance to lutesIs delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feeTo dance upon the air!
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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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Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore.
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And thus we rust Life's iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God's eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone.
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Punctuality is the thief of time.
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There were opium-dens, where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.
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It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it.
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The fatal errors of life are not due to man's being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one's finest moment. They are due to man's being logical.
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When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.
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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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There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience.
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There can be nothing more frequent than an occasional drink.
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Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow on another like the withered leaves of Autumn.
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We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.
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They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.
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It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with yourrose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame…
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At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still, But the sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill, For the Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to kill.
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He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.
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It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind.