Quotes by Wilde, Oscar

"It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes."

Wilde, Oscar on bills   

"Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable."

Wilde, Oscar on biography   

"There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us."

Wilde, Oscar on blame
6 fans of this quote   

"The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms."

Wilde, Oscar on books - classics   

"The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame."

Wilde, Oscar on books - reading
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"There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all."

Wilde, Oscar on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

"It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties."

Wilde, Oscar on business   

"The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer."

Wilde, Oscar on caprice
3 fans of this quote   

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"Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid."

Wilde, Oscar on careers   

"It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone."

Wilde, Oscar on change   

"It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out."

Wilde, Oscar on character   

"Charity creates a multitude of sins."

Wilde, Oscar on charity   

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"All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction."

Wilde, Oscar on charm
3 fans of this quote   

"It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

Wilde, Oscar on charm
4 fans of this quote   

"Nobody of any real culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of sunset. Sunsets are quite old fashioned. To admire them is a distinct sign of provincialism of temperament. Upon the other hand they go on."

Wilde, Oscar on sun   

"There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that."

Wilde, Oscar on superstition   

"There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the color, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better."

Wilde, Oscar on sympathy   

"Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain."

Wilde, Oscar on sympathy   

"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."

Wilde, Oscar on tact and tactfulness   

"I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments."

Wilde, Oscar on talkativeness
9 fans of this quote   

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"Good taste is the excuse I have given for leading such a bad life."

Wilde, Oscar on taste   

"Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art."

Wilde, Oscar on taste   

"Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others."

Wilde, Oscar on taxes and taxation   

"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."

Wilde, Oscar on teacher
3 fans of this quote   

"Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

Wilde, Oscar on teacher
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"Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music -- his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting -- that which he himself employs. The aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can appreciate all forms and all modes. It is to him that Art makes her appeal."

Wilde, Oscar on techniques   

"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason."

Wilde, Oscar on temper   

"I can resist everything except temptation."

Wilde, Oscar on temptation
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"Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to."

Wilde, Oscar on temptation
4 fans of this quote   

"Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there."

Wilde, Oscar on temptation   

"The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life."

Wilde, Oscar on theater
3 fans of this quote   

"Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching. Our splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national stupidity."

Wilde, Oscar on thoughts and thinking
3 fans of this quote   

"Time is waste of money."

Wilde, Oscar on time   

"In this world there are two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst."

Wilde, Oscar on tragedies   

"It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style."

Wilde, Oscar on tragedies   

"I was disappointed in Niagara -- most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life."

Wilde, Oscar on travel   

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train."

Wilde, Oscar on travel   

"All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death."

Wilde, Oscar on trials
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"One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything."

Wilde, Oscar on trust
10 fans of this quote   

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."

Wilde, Oscar on truth
4 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book