Oscar Wilde
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
In all pointed sentences some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
Foxhunting... the unspeakable pursuing the inedible.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Art is the most intense mode of invidualism that the world has known.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
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. And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper's house With the scent of costliest nard. Ah! happy 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?
Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on the the lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie If I this night before God's throne must stand. "He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, Like Baal, when his prophets holed that name From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height." Nay, peace! I shall behold, before the night, The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, The wounded hands, the weary human face.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk about. -Oscar Wilde.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance.
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Moderation is a fatal thing. . . . Nothing succeeds like excess.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
Extravagance is the luxury of the poor; penury is the luxury of the rich.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
I can believe anything provided it is incredible.
Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love's tragedies.
Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months.
Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadayssaying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.
The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
The book of life begins with a man and a woman in a garden, and ends with Revelations.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one
One should always be in love. This is the reason why one should never marry.
Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them, women will forgive them anything, even their gigantic intellects.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves...
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
Source: None Moderation is a fatal thing. . . . Nothing succeeds like excess.
Moderation is a fatal thing: nothing succeeds like excess.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.
The basis for optimism is sheer terror.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
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.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance.
Scandal: gossip made tedious by morality.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
There is no sin except stupidity.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
To have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you.
Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life.
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason.
I can resist anything except temptation.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
Punctuality is the thief of time.
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people.
As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked on as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored.
All by,
Oscar Wilde
In all pointed sentences some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
Foxhunting... the unspeakable pursuing the inedible.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Art is the most intense mode of invidualism that the world has known.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
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. And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper's house With the scent of costliest nard. Ah! happy 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?
Feast of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1170 Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on the the lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie If I this night before God's throne must stand. "He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, Like Baal, when his prophets holed that name From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height." Nay, peace! I shall behold, before the night, The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, The wounded hands, the weary human face.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk about. -Oscar Wilde.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance.
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Moderation is a fatal thing. . . . Nothing succeeds like excess.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
Extravagance is the luxury of the poor; penury is the luxury of the rich.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
I can believe anything provided it is incredible.
Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love's tragedies.
Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months.
Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadayssaying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.
The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
The book of life begins with a man and a woman in a garden, and ends with Revelations.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one
One should always be in love. This is the reason why one should never marry.
Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them, women will forgive them anything, even their gigantic intellects.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves...
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
Source: None Moderation is a fatal thing. . . . Nothing succeeds like excess.
Moderation is a fatal thing: nothing succeeds like excess.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.
The basis for optimism is sheer terror.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
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.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance.
Scandal: gossip made tedious by morality.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
There is no sin except stupidity.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
To have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you.
Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life.
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason.
I can resist anything except temptation.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
Punctuality is the thief of time.
It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people.
As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked on as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored.
All by,
Oscar Wilde