Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 54

• He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.

  Oscar Wilde

  Time, Age, Life Time

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “A Critic in Pall Mall: Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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• Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Political, Cities At Night

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.54, University of Chicago Press

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• A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes, it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Mother, Pain

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.36, GENERAL PRESS

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• Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

  Oscar Wilde

  Believe, Opinion, Moral

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Picture of Dorian Gray and Three Stories”, p.141, Penguin

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• As one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

  Oscar Wilde

  Punishment, Community, Political

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.50, Oscar Wilde

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• He is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for his love I would surrender heaven.

  Oscar Wilde

  Morning, Stars, Romantic Love

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• Lean on principles, one day they'll end up giving way.

  Oscar Wilde

  Giving, One Day, Principles

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• It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure.

  Oscar Wilde

  Successful, Men, Vanity

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

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• An entirely new factor has appeared in the social development of the country, and this factor is the Irish-American, and his influence. To mature its powers, to concentrate its action, to learn the secret of its own strength and of England's weakness, the Celtic intellect has had to cross the Atlantic. At home it had but learned the pathetic weakness of nationality; in a strange land it realised what indomitable forces nationality possesses. What captivity was to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish: America and American influence have educated them.

  Oscar Wilde

  Country, Home, America

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• one pale woman all alone,
  The daylight kissing her wan hair,
  Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,
  With lips of flame and heart of stone.

  Oscar Wilde

  Women, Heart, Kissing

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose”, p.153, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

  Oscar Wilde

  Vulgarity Is, Two, Facts

  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.156, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Stupid, Hands

  Oscar Wilde (2018). “Oscar Wilde Collection”, p.11, Youcanprint

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• The job of the critic is to report to us his moods.

  Oscar Wilde

  Jobs, Editors, Mood

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• For, try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearence of things to reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in the things apart from their appearences.

  Oscar Wilde

  Reality, Trying, May

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• Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it

  Oscar Wilde

  Pessimism, Modern

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.439, Courier Dover Publications

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• Never so sweet a repast as the Reaper's when you tread upon the threshold of a Quiznos.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sweet, Threshold, Reaper

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• Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss.

  Oscar Wilde

  Kings, Loss, Moon

  Oscar Wilde (1909). “Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde”

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• London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.

  Oscar Wilde

  Husband, Women, Unhappy

  Oscar Wilde (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.24, OUP Oxford

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• Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

  Oscar Wilde

  Greatness, Mediocrity, Pay

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• The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Creativity, Thinking

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• I expect I shall have to die beyond my means.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mean, Last Words, Dies

  Said when a huge fee for an operation was mentioned, in R. H. Sherard 'Life of Oscar Wilde' (1906) p. 421

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• Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
  For I am drowning in a stormier sea
  Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee

  Oscar Wilde

  Jesus, Prayer, Lakes

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “Poems”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

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• In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded....He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spiritual, Art, Philosophy

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• Don't tell me that you have exhausted Life. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Exhausted, Ennui

  Quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946)

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• Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

  Oscar Wilde

  Women, Strange, Surrender

  Oscar Wilde (1998). “Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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