But somehow, I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Mrs. Allonby, Act 1.
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar. – Oscar Wilde
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Stutfield, Act 1.
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Jack, Act 1.
Truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, Act 1.
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years. To hear then talk one would imagine they were in their first childhood. As far as civilisation goes they are in their second. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Algernon, Act 1.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between. – Oscar Wilde
I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse. – Oscar Wilde De Profundis
I am not changed. But circumstances alter things. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, Act 1.
The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. – Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism
I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn’t mean. – Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lady Windermere, Act 1.
Lady Stutfield: The world was made for men and not for women. Mrs. Allonby: Oh, don’t say that, Lady Stutfield. We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. – Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist
There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 1.
How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in? – Oscar Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol
The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach. – Oscar Wilde
Jack: My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist. It produces a false impression. Angernon: Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. – Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest, Act 1.
We women adore failures. They lean on us. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Mrs. Allonby, Act 1.
An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him. – Oscar Wilde On George Bernard Shaw
He rides in the Row at ten o’clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don’t call that leading an idle life, do you. – Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband, Mabel Chiltern, Act 1.