Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 33

• Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

  Oscar Wilde

  Romance, Privilege, Income

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.215, Wordsworth Editions

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• I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.

  Oscar Wilde

  Cynical

  Oscar Wilde (2009). “The Happy Prince and Other Stories”, p.90, Collector's Library

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• Love is not fashionable anymore; the poets have killed it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love Is, Poet, Fashionable

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.103, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

• It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.

  Oscar Wilde

  Giving, Doubt, Unbiased

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

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• People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Judging, World

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.27, Diversion Books

  9 Copy quote

• He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

  Oscar Wilde

  Time, Principles, Thieves

  "The Picture of Dorian Gray and Three Stories".

  13 Copy quote

• What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise [in the future. But only if we set out to make this true and anticipate it so we look for the blessings until we find them].

  Oscar Wilde

  Blessing, Looks, Trials

  13 Copy quote

• Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean .... I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. Dance for me, Salomé, I beseech you. If you dance for me you may ask of me what you will, and I will give it you, even unto the half of my kingdom.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Night, Wings

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.153, Wordsworth Editions

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• Give children beauty, not the record of bloody slaughters and barbarous brawls, as they call history, or of the latitude and longitude of places nobody cares to visit, as they call geography.

  Oscar Wilde

  Children, Giving, Records

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.159, Courier Corporation

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• The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, True Artists, Known

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.59, Courier Corporation

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• Duty is what one expects from others.

  Oscar Wilde

  Responsibility, Ethics, Duty

  Oscar Wilde, Peter Raby (2008). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays: Lady Windermere's Fan; Salome; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.127, Oxford Paperbacks

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• The supreme object of life is to live. Few people live. It is true life only to realize one's own perfection, to make one's every dream a reality.

  Oscar Wilde

  Dream, Reality, People

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Nothing...Except My Genius”, p.30, Penguin UK

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• If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. But if a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly.

  Oscar Wilde

  Friends, Mind, Sorrow

  Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.86, Wordsworth Editions

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• When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Men

  Oscar Wilde, Alyssa Harad (2005). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays”, p.267, Simon and Schuster

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• Genius is born-not paid

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Genius

  Oscar Wilde, Alvin Redman (1959). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.202, Courier Corporation

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• To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Shock

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.566, Wordsworth Editions

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• Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.

  Oscar Wilde

  Writing, Men, Biographies

  "The Butterfly's Boswell" (1887)

  65 Copy quote

• I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

  Oscar Wilde

  Education, Ignorance, Squares

  1895 Lady Bracknell. The Importance of Being Earnest, act 1.

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• Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things. There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation. The thin beaten-out leaf of tremulous gold that chronicles the direction of forces the eye cannot see is in comparison coarse. It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sad, Pain, Eye

  Oscar Wilde (1909). “De profundus”

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• You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.

  Oscar Wilde

  Cake, Missing, Tea

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.402, Courier Dover Publications

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• There were opium-dens, where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.

  Oscar Wilde

  Memories, Madness, Horror

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.201, Diversion Books

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• I wonder that no criminal has ever pleaded the ugliness of your city as an excuse for his crimes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Cities, America, Criminals

  Oscar Wilde (2010). “Oscar Wilde in America: The Interviews”, p.70, University of Illinois Press

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• When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Criticism, Beneath The Surface

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.175, Courier Corporation

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• A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Successful, Men, Judging

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.184, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sarcastic, Political, Opinion

  "Stories for Young People".

  45 Copy quote

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