Quotes by Wilde, Oscar

"Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed."

Wilde, Oscar on marriage
6 fans of this quote   

"Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable."

Wilde, Oscar on marriage   

"No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true."

Wilde, Oscar on art
7 fans of this quote   

"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all."

Wilde, Oscar on maturity
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"In old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press."

Wilde, Oscar on media   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life."

Wilde, Oscar on meetings   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us."

Wilde, Oscar on memory   

"The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says."

Wilde, Oscar on men   

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

Wilde, Oscar on women
9 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

Wilde, Oscar on women
41 fans of this quote   

"The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly... men don't like it."

Wilde, Oscar on women   

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

Wilde, Oscar on women   

"What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere?"

Wilde, Oscar on mind
4 fans of this quote   

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

Wilde, Oscar on misers and misery
11 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies."

Wilde, Oscar on misfortunes   

"Experience is the name we give to our mistakes."

Wilde, Oscar on mistakes
8 fans of this quote   

"Life would be dull without them."

Wilde, Oscar on mistakes   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners."

Wilde, Oscar on models and modeling   

"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."

Wilde, Oscar on moderation   

"It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned."

Wilde, Oscar on modern and modernism
5 fans of this quote   

"When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is."

Wilde, Oscar on money
4 fans of this quote   

"There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else."

Wilde, Oscar on money   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity."

Wilde, Oscar on monuments   

"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do."

Wilde, Oscar on moralists
3 fans of this quote   

"A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain."

Wilde, Oscar on moralists   

"Morality is the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike."

Wilde, Oscar on morality
4 fans of this quote   

"There is no such thing as morality or immorality in thought. There is immoral emotion."

Wilde, Oscar on morality   

"Lord Illingworth: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. Mrs. Allonby: No man does. That is his."

Wilde, Oscar on mothers   

"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives."

Wilde, Oscar on motives
8 fans of this quote   

"Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner."

Wilde, Oscar on murder
5 fans of this quote   

"Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

Wilde, Oscar on music
3 fans of this quote   

"Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf."

Wilde, Oscar on music   

"If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation."

Wilde, Oscar on music   

"It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for."

Wilde, Oscar on names   

"We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities."

Wilde, Oscar on necessity
5 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"It is always the unreadable that occurs."

Wilde, Oscar on news   

"Newspapers have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied upon."

Wilde, Oscar on newspapers   

"Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion."

Wilde, Oscar on obedience   

"The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art."

Wilde, Oscar on obscenity   

"No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists."

Wilde, Oscar on opinions