Quotations by Oscar Wilde

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.

Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People