A woman’s first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isn’t it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.
Ah! How I loathe the Romans! They are rough and common, and they give themselves the airs of noble lords. – Oscar Wilde Salome
The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingsworth, Act 3.
Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong. – Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Cecil Graham, Act 3.
In France, in fact, they limit the journalist and allow the artist almost perfect freedom. Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist, and entirely limit the artist. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and distracts one’s mind from higher things. – Oscar Wilde The Remarkable Rocket
When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her, except continue to love her. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.
Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingsworth, Act 3.
Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance. – Oscar Wilde Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. ‘You are blind now,’ he said, ‘so I will stay with you always.’ – Oscar Wilde The Happy Prince
I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily, Act 2.
As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the soul alone are shameful. – Oscar Wilde De Profundis
A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three-quarters never knows much about anything. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.
In modern days…the fashion of writing poetry has become far too common, and should, if possible, be discouraged. – Oscar Wilde The Decay of Lying
You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. – Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lady Windermere, Act 3.
One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one’s hearers. – Oscar Wilde A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
But good women have such limited views of life, their horizon is so small, their interests are so petty. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingsworth, Act 3.
We don’t want to be harrowed and disgusted with an account of the doings of the lower orders. – Oscar Wilde The Decay of Lying
It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes. – Oscar Wilde Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
Who on earth writes to him on pink paper? How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance. Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest, Gwendolen, Act 2.
People nowadays are so absolutely superficial that they don’t understand the philosophy of the superficial. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingsworth, Act 3.
No country produces such badly written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, vulgar plays as in England. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Puritanism is never so offensive and destructive as when it deals with art matters. – Oscar Wilde Art and Morality: A Defence of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’
As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
Crime in England is rarely the result of sin. It is nearly always the result of starvation. – Oscar Wilde Pen, Pencil and Poison
A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. – Oscar Wilde De Profundis
The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Cheveley, Act 3.