I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but
I play with wonderful expression.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example,
what on earth is the use of them?
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the
country one amuses other people.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Jack, Act 1. |
Divorces are made in Heaven.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think
it right.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one
should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern
culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It
is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist.
It produces a false impression.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Jack, Act 1. |
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury,
in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever
I choose.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands
is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing
one's clean linen in public.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
In married life three is company and two is none.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors,
ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids.
I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing
to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
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 so nervous.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Gwendolen, Act 1. |
An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant
or unpleasant as the case may be.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
Jack: I must admit I smoke.
Lady Bracknell: I am glad to hear it. A man should always have
an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men
in London as it is.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Act 1. |
I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get
married should know either everything or nothing.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
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.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime,
and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has
ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position,
and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be
said about land.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune;
to lose both looks like carelessness.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Bracknell, Act 1. |
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t
got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest
instinct about when to die.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
No man does. That's his.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.
You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The
thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness
we had a few fools left.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Jack, Act 1. |
My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing
one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary
ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
The Importance of Being Earnest
Jack, Act 1. |
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her,
if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind
hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon, Act 1. |
Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children
say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast
dying out.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Gwendolen, Act 1. |
Sex
and the City
