Oscar Wilde Quotes
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Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.
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From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.
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Oh, how I vainly wished to the bearded man in the sky that I was Neapolitan. Why? So I could bring in a fine Neapolitan pest control to help with Queensberry's problem before it gets out of hand.
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One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
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He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone.
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When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
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Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow on another like the withered leaves of Autumn.
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Nature is a wet place where large numbers of ducks fly overhead uncooked.
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The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.
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And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart.
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The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.
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I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice.
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I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.
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...The two great turning-points of my life were when my father sent to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison.
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It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
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Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
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London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.
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Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.
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America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.
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The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang-tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.
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Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.
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They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.
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An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.
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And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.