"Well-ordered self-love is right and natural."

Aquinas, St. Thomas on love
25 fans of this quote   

"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."

Aristotle on discipline
30 fans of this quote   

"Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic"

Wilde, Oscar on life   

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

Wilde, Oscar on fantasy
12 fans of this quote   

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

Wilde, Oscar on fashion
26 fans of this quote   

"People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect -- simply a confession of failures."

Wilde, Oscar on fidelity
10 fans of this quote   

"Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much."

Wilde, Oscar on forgiveness
50 fans of this quote   

"An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship."

Wilde, Oscar on friends and friendship
11 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."

Wilde, Oscar on friends and friendship
19 fans of this quote   

"The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are."

Wilde, Oscar on the future
10 fans of this quote   

"The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us."

Wilde, Oscar on generations
9 fans of this quote   

"I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves."

Wilde, Oscar on family
9 fans of this quote   

"Misfortunes one can endure -- they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults -- Ah! there is the sting of life."

Wilde, Oscar on failure
13 fans of this quote   

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

Wilde, Oscar on dream
60 fans of this quote   

"Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness."

Wilde, Oscar on dullness
15 fans of this quote   

"The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence."

Wilde, Oscar on education
12 fans of this quote   

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

Wilde, Oscar on education
39 fans of this quote   

"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

Wilde, Oscar on enemies
15 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion."

Wilde, Oscar on events
5 fans of this quote   

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

Wilde, Oscar on excellence
34 fans of this quote   

"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."

Wilde, Oscar on experience
32 fans of this quote   

"Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves."

Wilde, Oscar on genius
6 fans of this quote   

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

Wilde, Oscar on genius
10 fans of this quote   

"Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable."

Wilde, Oscar on impossibility
6 fans of this quote   

"To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual."

Wilde, Oscar on action
8 fans of this quote   

"Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies."

Wilde, Oscar on infidelity
12 fans of this quote   

"A kiss may ruin a human life."

Wilde, Oscar on kisses and kissing
11 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I am not young enough to know everything."

Wilde, Oscar on knowledge
16 fans of this quote   

"The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company."

Wilde, Oscar on lies and lying
4 fans of this quote   

"As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection."

Wilde, Oscar on lies and lying   

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

Wilde, Oscar on life
31 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."

Wilde, Oscar on imagination
13 fans of this quote   

"Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it, and the bloom is gone."

Wilde, Oscar on ignorance
4 fans of this quote   

"Ambition is the last refuge of failure."

Wilde, Oscar on ambition
13 fans of this quote   

"There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America."

Wilde, Oscar on america   

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Wilde, Oscar on goals
22 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."

Wilde, Oscar on goodness
15 fans of this quote   

"When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy."

Wilde, Oscar on happiness
11 fans of this quote   

"The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality."

Wilde, Oscar on humankind
4 fans of this quote   

"It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way."

Wilde, Oscar on humankind
8 fans of this quote