It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach. – Oscar Wilde
Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets. – Oscar Wilde
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people…The Japanese people are…simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art. – Oscar Wilde The Decay of Lying
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
The poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts. – Oscar Wilde Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’Clock
As for borrowing Mr. Whistler’s ideas about Art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have ever heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself. – Oscar Wilde On artist James Whistler
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic. – Oscar Wilde Art and Morality: A Defence of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’
A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature. – Oscar Wilde Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Last night at Prince’s Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on Art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvelous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind. – Oscar Wilde Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’Clock
Most women are so artificial that they have no sense of Art. Most men are so natural that they have no sense of Beauty. – Oscar Wilde A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
I am not prepared to sit in the grotesque pillory they put me into, for all time; for the simple reason that I inherited from my father and mother a name of high distinction in literature and art, and I cannot for eternity allow that name to be degraded. – Oscar Wilde Letter to Robert Ross, from Reading Gaol.
There are moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour. – Oscar Wilde The Model Millionaire
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious. – Oscar Wilde A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
The artist is always the munificent patron of the public. I am very fond of the public, and, personally, I always patronise the public very much. – Oscar Wilde Interview for The Sketch
Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art. – Oscar Wilde
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
But then no artist expects grace from the vulgar mind, or style from the suburban intellect. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
It is proper that limitations should be placed on action. It is not proper that limitations should be placed on art. To art belongs all things that are and things that are not, and even the editor of a London paper has no right to restrain the freedom of art in the selection of subject-matter. – Oscar Wilde Art and Morality: A Defence of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’
The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or dishonest tradesman. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Ah! Meredith! Who can define him. His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do anything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything, except articulate. – Oscar Wilde The Decay of Lying