"To speak kindly does not hurt the tongue."

Proverb on courtesy
7 fans of this quote   

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

Wilde, Oscar on age and aging
8 fans of this quote   

"No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

Wilde, Oscar on age and aging
5 fans of this quote   

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"Ambition is the last refuge of failure."

Wilde, Oscar on ambition
13 fans of this quote   

"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."

Wilde, Oscar on america
5 fans of this quote   

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

Wilde, Oscar on america
10 fans of this quote   

"People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all."

Wilde, Oscar on anarchism
3 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   

"To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability."

Wilde, Oscar on goodness
9 fans of this quote   

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

Wilde, Oscar on gossip
14 fans of this quote   

"A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude."

Wilde, Oscar on gentlemen
24 fans of this quote   

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

Wilde, Oscar on genius
10 fans of this quote   

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."

Wilde, Oscar on food and eating
11 fans of this quote   

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"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   

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"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   

"We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely."

Wilde, Oscar on function
5 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 put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."

Wilde, Oscar on genius
6 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   

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true."

Wilde, Oscar on gossip
9 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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   

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing."

Wilde, Oscar on ideals and idealism
3 fans of this quote   

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"The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action."

Wilde, Oscar on illusion
8 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   

"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."

Wilde, Oscar on individuality
9 fans of this quote   

"Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion."

Wilde, Oscar on innocence
4 fans of this quote   

"The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all."

Wilde, Oscar on intelligence and intellectuals
5 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are."

Wilde, Oscar on interviews
6 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say."

Wilde, Oscar on hypocrisy
23 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it."

Wilde, Oscar on hypocrisy
3 fans of this quote   

"They are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not."

Wilde, Oscar on husbands
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

Wilde, Oscar on happiness
27 fans of this quote   

"Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it."

Wilde, Oscar on history and historians
5 fans of this quote   

"I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to."

Wilde, Oscar on hospitality
5 fans of this quote   

"Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt."

Wilde, Oscar on work
9 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result."

Wilde, Oscar on nature
8 fans of this quote   

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."

Wilde, Oscar on humankind
14 fans of this quote