Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 40

• One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

  Oscar Wilde

  Time, Past, People

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.27, Wordsworth Editions

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• I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
  All that we know who be in jail
  Is that the wall is strong;
  And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

  Oscar Wilde

  Witty, Strong, Wall

  The Ballad of Reading Gaol pt. 5, st. 1 (1898)

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• The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

  Oscar Wilde

  Fate, Curves, Ivory

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.152, Wordsworth Editions

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• Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Weather, People

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.25

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• When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

  Oscar Wilde

  Respect, Men, Names

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “Epigrams and Aphorisms”, p.57, BoD – Books on Demand

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• All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spring, Book, Reading

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

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• The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ

  Oscar Wilde

  London, Notes, Organs

  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.3, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the soul alone are shameful.

  Oscar Wilde

  Soul, Physicians, Flesh

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.171, Wordsworth Editions

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• This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.

  Oscar Wilde

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• Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.

  Oscar Wilde

  Country, Flower, People

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “Epigrams”, p.47, BoD – Books on Demand

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• I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Unbearable

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.30, Wordsworth Editions

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• Biography lends to death a new terror.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Writing, Humor

  Oscar Wilde (1947). “The Happy Prince”, p.16, New Line Publishing

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• Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Passion, Joy

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• An actor is part illusionist, part artist, part ham.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Theatre, Actors

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• Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Trying, Exhausted

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.30, Wordsworth Editions

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• The only sin is stupidity.

  Oscar Wilde

  Stupidity, Sin

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• The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

  Oscar Wilde

  Insecure, Civilization, Machines

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance

  Oscar Wilde

  Importance, Smallest

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1006, GENERAL PRESS

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• I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Prejudice, Reviews

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• Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Freedom, Kissing, Anarchy

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.148, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much, don't they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me.

  Oscar Wilde

  Thinking, Genius, Want

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.624, Wordsworth Editions

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• You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Savages, Poor

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.11, Xist Publishing

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• For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time. That is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison tears are a part of every day's experience. A day in prison on which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not a day on which one's heart is happy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Heart, Years, Space

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.128, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleance me in the great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sweet, Hurt, Stars

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.152, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.

  Oscar Wilde

  Romance, Bed, Buried

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (with an Essay by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly)”, p.65, Mondial

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