Oscar Wilde Quotes About Progress

• Progress is the realization of utopia.

  Oscar Wilde

  Progress, Realization, Utopia

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (1999). “The Soul of Man, and Prison Writings”, p.16, Oxford University Press, USA

• Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

  Oscar Wilde

  Eye, Men, History

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". Essay by Oscar Wilde, 1891.

• A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

  Oscar Wilde

  Country, Land, Humanity

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.1051, Wordsworth Editions

• Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one center of pain.

  Oscar Wilde

  Pain, Grief, Circles

  Oscar Wilde (1961). “Works: Edited with an Introduction”

• The evolution of man is slow. The injustice of men is great.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Progress, Evolution Of Man

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1065, Wordsworth Editions

• Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Men, Progress

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.65, Wordsworth Editions

• What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colorless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.

  Oscar Wilde

  Race, Rejection, Curiosity

  Oscar Wilde (1908). “Intentions”

• Ethics, like natural selection, make existence possible. Aesthetics, like sensual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and variety and change.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love Life, Giving, Lovely

• Self-denial is simply a method by which arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sacrifice, Self, Survival

  Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.195, Wordsworth Editions

• Each little thing that we do passes into the great machine of life which may grind our virtues to powder and make them worthless, or transform our sins into elements of a new civilization, more marvelous and more splendid than any that has gone before.

  Oscar Wilde

  Civilization, Progress, Littles

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (2008). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.257, Oxford University Press

• Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority.

  Oscar Wilde

  Liberty, Progress, Individualism

  Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel (2011). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition”, p.94, Harvard University Press

• The nineteenth century is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of two men, Darwin and Renan, the one the critic of the Book of Nature, the other the critic of the books of God. Not to recognise this is to miss the meaning of one of the most important eras in the progress of the world.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Men, Two

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The critic as artist (low cost). Limited edition”, p.84, Oscar Wilde

• Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ambition, Progress, Kingdoms

• The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beauty, Country, Art

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1653, Delphi Classics

• What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colourless.

  Oscar Wilde

  Progress, Essentials, Elements

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.672, GENERAL PRESS

• A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ambition, Sacrifice, Men

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.472, OUP Oxford

• Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Perfect, Progress

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.47, Wordsworth Editions

• A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Curves, Progress

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.357, Wordsworth Editions

You May Also Like:

Alfred Douglas

Edgar Allan Poe

Mark Twain

Charles Dickens

George Bernard Shaw

James Joyce

William Shakespeare