Oscar Wilde
1854 – 1900
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
I am not young enough to know everything.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Genius is born – not paid.
I always like to know everything about my new friends,
and nothing about my old ones.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Wisdom comes with winters.
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Only the shallow know themselves.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
I love acting.
It is so much more real than life.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people’s.
I can resist anything but temptation.
Women love us for our defects.
If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend,
but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.
I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone elses opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything.
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.