Oscar Wilde Quotes About Books

• The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

  Oscar Wilde

  Forgiveness, Letting Go, Book

  Intentions "The Critic as Artist" pt. 1 (1891)

• I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Travel

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.50, Prestwick House Inc

• If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Oscar Wilde (1950). “Essays”, Ayer Company Pub

• It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Wisdom, Book, Reading

• I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Work, Book

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations”, p.3, Courier Corporation

• The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Anger, Reading

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 19 (1891)

• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

  Oscar Wilde

  Being Yourself, Love Yourself, Taken

  Letter to Alfred Douglas, Jan. - Mar. 1897

• Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Book

  Lady Windermere's Fan act 3 (1892)

• I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Hundred, Five

• Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Pain, Book

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.7, Oxford University Press on Demand

• All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spring, Book, Reading

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “The Prose of Oscar Wilde”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

• Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Work

  Quoted in Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions (1916)

• With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?

  Oscar Wilde

  Happiness, Flower, Book

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (1999). “The Soul of Man, and Prison Writings”, p.128, Oxford University Press, USA

• A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

• The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Inspirational, Positive

  The Importance of Being Earnest act 1 (1895)

• Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Reading Literature

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

• Books are never finished, They are merely abandoned.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Abandoned

• In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (2008). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.570, Oxford University Press

• Why was I born with such contemporaries?

  Oscar Wilde

  Sarcastic, Book, Beer

• It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Book, School

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.284, OUP Oxford

• I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Three Stories”, p.45, Penguin

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

• The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

• Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Book, Mean

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

• My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Book, Humor

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Importance of Being Earnest: Revised Edition”, p.76, Bloomsbury Publishing

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