Good looks are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Act 2.
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.
We cannot go back to the saint. There is far more to be learned from the sinner. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately. – Oscar Wilde
The English public like tediousness, and like things to be explained to them in a tedious way. – Oscar Wilde Art and Morality: A Defence of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’
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
And, as for what is called improving conversation, that is merely the foolish method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
All Americans lecture, I believe. I suppose it is something in their climate. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 2.
A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. – Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Cecil Graham, Act 3.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it. – Oscar Wilde Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
And now you must run away, for I am dining with some very dull people, who won’t talk scandal, and I know that if I don’t get any sleep now I shall never be able to keep awake during dinner. – Oscar Wilde Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
Her sense of humor keeps her from the tragedy of a grande passion, and, as there is neither romance nor humility in her love, she makes an excellent wife. – Oscar Wilde The American Invasion
What is our son at present? An underpaid clerk in a small Provincial Bank in a third-rate English town. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 2.
I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Algernon, Act 2.
For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. – Oscar Wilde Vera, or The Nihilists
If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties make it unbearable. In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
In Love Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 3.
Ah! It is so easy to convert others. It is so difficult to convert oneself. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
A sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing. – Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Cecil Graham, Act 3.
It is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full of terrors. – Oscar Wilde Salome
Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life’s lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 3.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. – Oscar Wilde Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Dandyism is the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty. – Oscar Wilde A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
No married man is ever attractive except to his wife. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Miss Prism, Act 2.
No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 3.