Oscar Wilde Quotes About Quality

• The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.

  Oscar Wilde

  Nature, Errors, Growth

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1062, Wordsworth Editions

• It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.

  Oscar Wilde

  Nature, Character, Men

  Oscar Wilde (2004). “The Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and Writings”, p.14, Penguin

• The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Thought Provoking, Quality, Human Nature

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1062, Wordsworth Editions

• "Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information." "I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand." "Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?" "I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person."

  Oscar Wilde

  Believe, Wine, Heaven

  "The Importance of Being Earnest".

• Perhaps there may come into my art also, no less than into my life, a still deeper note, one of greater unity of passion, and directness of impulse. Not width but intensity is the true aim of modern art. We are no longer in art concerned with the type. It is with the exception that we have to do. I cannot put my sufferings into any form they took, I need hardly say. Art only begins where Imitation ends, but something must come into my work, of fuller memory of words perhaps, of richer cadences, of more curious effects, of simpler architectural order, of some aesthetic quality at any rate.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Memories, Passion

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.731, GENERAL PRESS

• Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Fashion, Art

• After a good quality dinner one will be able to forgive anybody, still one's own relations.

  Oscar Wilde

  Forgiving, Quality, Dinner

• On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners.

  Oscar Wilde

  Marriage, Husband, Men

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.62, University of Chicago Press

• We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.

  Oscar Wilde

  Thinking, Quality, May

  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.52, Oxford University Press on Demand

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