Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingsworth, Act 3.
There is only one real tragedy in a woman’s life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 4.
Loveless marriages are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side only, and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, Act 4.
When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 3.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
But love is not fashionable any more, the poets killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them. – Oscar Wilde The Remarkable Rocket
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything. – Oscar Wilde
I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist. – Oscar Wilde
No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone. – Oscar Wilde