Quotes by

Oscar Wilde

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. – Oscar Wilde

She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. – Oscar Wilde

Pray dont talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. – Oscar Wilde

The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful. – Oscar Wilde

It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest. – Oscar Wilde

The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. – Oscar Wilde

Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything. – Oscar Wilde

The English public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral. – Oscar Wilde

The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope. When the Verities become acrobats we can judge them. – Oscar Wilde

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. – Oscar Wilde

Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are. – Oscar Wilde

The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. – Oscar Wilde

The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action. – Oscar Wilde

A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude. – Oscar Wilde

Frank Harris has been received in all the great houses — once! – Oscar Wilde

For his mourners will be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn. – Oscar Wilde

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. – Oscar Wilde

Who is that man over there? I dont know him. What is he doing? Is he a conspirator? Have you searched him? Give him till tomorrow to confess, then hang him! — hang him! – Oscar Wilde

The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves. – Oscar Wilde

You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. – Oscar Wilde