Oscar Wilde Quotes

To influence a person is to give him one's own soul.
Oscar Wilde
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
Oscar Wilde
If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.
Oscar Wilde
But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?GWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest.JACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me
Oscar Wilde
When good Americans die, they go to Paris.
Oscar Wilde
Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part.
Oscar Wilde
Art, like Nature, has her monsters
Oscar Wilde
Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss.
Oscar Wilde
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
I've put my genius into my life I've only put my talent into my works.
Oscar Wilde
This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde
There is no such thing as romance in our day women have become too brilliant nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman.
Oscar Wilde
Ordinary riches can be stolen real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
Oscar Wilde
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can you want?
Oscar Wilde
Punctuality is the thief of time.
Oscar Wilde
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Oscar Wilde
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Oscar Wilde
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
Oscar Wilde
I can resist everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Oscar Wilde
Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
To have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact talk to every woman as if you loved her and to every man as if he bored you.
Oscar Wilde
To get into the best society nowadays one has either to feed people amuse people or shock people.
Oscar Wilde
Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern one is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.
Oscar Wilde
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde
Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple and the simple thing is the right thing.
Oscar Wilde
My great mistake the fault for which I can't forgive myself is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.
Oscar Wilde
To be on the alert is to live to be lulled into security is to die.
Oscar Wilde
The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Oscar Wilde
It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.
Oscar Wilde
It is not the prisoners who need reformation it is the prisons.
Oscar Wilde
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.
Oscar Wilde
Only the shallow know themselves.
Oscar Wilde
I know not whether laws be right Or whether laws be wrong All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong And that each day is like a year A year whose days are long.
Oscar Wilde
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde
A true gentlemen is one who is never unintentionally rude.
Oscar Wilde
A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.
Oscar Wilde
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible not the invisible.
Oscar Wilde
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Oscar Wilde
To most of us the real life is the life we do not lead.
Oscar Wilde
Pessimist - one who when he has the choice of two evils chooses both.
Oscar Wilde
To become the spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.
Oscar Wilde
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
Oscar Wilde
It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.
Oscar Wilde
It is not the prisoners who need reformation it is the prisons.
Oscar Wilde
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.
Oscar Wilde
Only the shallow know themselves.
Oscar Wilde
I know not whether laws be right Or whether laws be wrong All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong And that each day is like a year A year whose days are long.
Oscar Wilde
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde
A true gentlemen is one who is never unintentionally rude.
Oscar Wilde
A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.
Oscar Wilde
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible not the invisible.
Oscar Wilde
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Oscar Wilde
To most of us the real life is the life we do not lead.
Oscar Wilde
Pessimist - one who when he has the choice of two evils chooses both.
Oscar Wilde
To become the spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.
Oscar Wilde
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
Oscar Wilde