Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 41

• Women treat us [men] like humanity treats gods – they worship us and keep bothering us to do something.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Humanity, Worship

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• 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”

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• A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.

  Oscar Wilde

  Poet, Really Great, Creatures

  Oscar Wilde, Moira Muldoon (2005). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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• The wild Bee reels from bough to bough
  With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
  Now in a lily cup, and now
  Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
  In his wandering.

  Oscar Wilde

  Swings, Lilies, Coats

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.849, Wordsworth Editions

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• The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

  Oscar Wilde

  Passion, Differences, Littles

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 2 (1891)

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• The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.

  Oscar Wilde

  Intellectual, Facts, Truth Is

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.200, Wordsworth Editions

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• Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism.

  Oscar Wilde

  Greek, Facts, Modern

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.975, Wordsworth Editions

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• To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that.

  Oscar Wilde

  Single Mom, Risk, Weakness

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “An Ideal Husband”, p.40, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Like two doomed ships that pass in storm we had crossed each other's way: but we made no sign, we said no word, we had no word to say.

  Oscar Wilde

  Two, Storm, Way

  'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' (1898) pt. 2, st. 12

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• It is a vulgar error to suppose that America was ever discovered. It was merely detected.

  Oscar Wilde

  Errors, America, Vulgar

  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.433, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• 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

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• Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Art, Passion

  Oscar Wilde, Moira Muldoon (2005). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings”, p.211, Simon and Schuster

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• I don't recognize you - I've changed a lot.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, I've Changed

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• Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.

  Oscar Wilde

  Doors, Doe, Matter

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

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• Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Art, Cities

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• Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.

  Oscar Wilde

  Amusement, Want, Serious

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.112

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• Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, Destiny never closed her accounts.

  Oscar Wilde

  Destiny, Men, Pay

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.159, Prestwick House Inc

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• As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

  Oscar Wilde

  Stupid, Enemy, Poverty

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1035, GENERAL PRESS

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• There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Writing, Men

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.648, GENERAL PRESS

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• Though one can dine in New York, one could not dwell there.

  Oscar Wilde

  New York, Dine In, Cities At Night

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1023, GENERAL PRESS

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• Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another's guilt!

  Oscar Wilde

  Guilt, Feels, Fearful

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde”, p.11, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The worst thing to do with success, is to boast about it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Worst, Things To Do, Boast

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• Before Turner there was no fog in London.

  Oscar Wilde

  Fog, London, Turner

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• There was purification in punishment. Not 'Forgive us our sins,' but 'Smite us for our iniquities' should be the prayer of a man to a most just God.

  Oscar Wilde

  Prayer, Men, Forgiving

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.152, Wordsworth Editions

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• The gods bestowed on Max [Beerbohm] the gift of perpetual old age.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Age, Max

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.43, Wordsworth Editions

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