Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 18

• People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Generosity, Giving

  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.217, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to.

  Oscar Wilde

  Past, Amusing

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• There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Sympathy, Pain

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.51, First Avenue Editions

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• The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.

  Oscar Wilde

  Heart, Broken, Stones

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.108, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Art, Lying

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.60, Courier Corporation

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• Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

  Oscar Wilde

  Color, Soul, Different

  Oscar Wilde (2004). “The Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and Writings”, p.319, Penguin

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• Beauty ...is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Dark, Reflection

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.208, Wordsworth Editions

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• A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Truth, Believe, Being True

  "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (1894)

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• Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Independent Women

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “A Woman of No Importance”, p.50, Trajectory Inc

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• The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Obvious

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1670, Delphi Classics

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• A true gentleman is one who is never intentionally rude.

  Oscar Wilde

  Rude, Gentleman, Rudeness

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• To be in love is to surpass one's self.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Love Is, Self

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.62, Prestwick House Inc

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• Love does not traffic in a marketplace, nor use a huckster's scales. Its joy, like the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of Love is to love: no more, and no less. You were my enemy: such an enemy as no man ever had. I had given you all my life, and to gratify the lowest and most contemptible of all human passions, hatred and vanity and greed, you had thrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me in every point of view. For my own sake there was nothing for me to do but to love you.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love You, Passion, Men

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• The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

  Oscar Wilde

  Writing, Media, Differences

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• It is only very ugly or very beautiful women who ever hide their faces .

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Ugly, Faces

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations”, p.10, Courier Corporation

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• Too much work, and no vacation, Deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses, Work's the curse of the drinking classes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Drinking, Vacation

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• I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

  Oscar Wilde

  Wise, Women, Future

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.136, GENERAL PRESS

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• Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.

  Oscar Wilde

  Prayer, Correspondence, Ifs

  Quoted in Laurence Housman, Echo de Paris (1923)

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• She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

  Oscar Wilde

  Laughter, Pain, Passion

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.49, GENERAL PRESS

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• I don't want to earn a living. I want to live.

  Oscar Wilde

  Want

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• She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.

  Oscar Wilde

  Clever, Weakness, Charm

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.125, Wordsworth Editions

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• The truth is never pure and rarely simple.

  Oscar Wilde

  Simple, Truth Is, Economics

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• Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcasm, Piano Music

  Impressions of America (1906). The Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate, 20 Apr. 1883, describes an afterdinner speech made by Wilde in Paris about his experiences in the United States: "The brightest and best of the many stories he related was one to the effect that at a ball in Leadville he saw a notice over the piano which read: 'Please don't shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.' "

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• We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent.

  Oscar Wilde

  Trust, Betrayal, Integrity

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1491, Delphi Classics

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• Indeed, as any one who has ever worked among the poor knows only too well, the brotherhood of man is no mere poet's dream, it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.

  Oscar Wilde

  Dream, Depressing, Reality

  "The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde".

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