Then the marvelous gospel of gold breaks down sometimes. The rich can’t do everything, after all. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 2.
Oh, I should fancy Mrs. Cheveley is one of those very modern women of our time who find a new scandal as becoming as a new bonnet, and air them both in the Park every afternoon at five-thirty. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Henry, Act 2.
She wore far too much rouge last night, and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 2.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, Act 2.
Damme, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can’t be always living for pleasure. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Caversham to Lord Goring, Act 2.
Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mabel Chiltern, Act 2.
I’m sure I don’t know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn’t like to. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
Like all stout women, she looks the very picture of happiness. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
Nothing ages a woman so rapidly as having married the general rule. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
I don’t think man has much capacity for development. He has got as far as he can, and that is not far, is it? – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
I wouldn’t marry a man with a future before him for anything under the sun. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mabel Chiltern, Act 2.
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 An Ideal Husband, Mabel Chiltern, Act 2.
Nothing is as dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
The fact is that our Society is terribly over-populated. Really, some one should arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great deal of good. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 2.
He is a typical Englishman, always dull and usually violent. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 2.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Act 2, Mrs. Cheveley.
All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, Act 2.
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
Lord Goring: Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England – they are always losing their relations. Phipps: Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Act 3.
It is the growth of the moral sense of women that makes marriage such a hopeless, one-sided institution. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley to Lord Goring, Act 3.
In married life affection comes when people thoroughly dislike each other. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.
No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Cavasham, Act 3.
Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 3.