Top 1905 Quotes & Sayings by Oscar Wilde - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish poet Oscar Wilde.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Everything popular is wrong.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
In judging of a beautiful statue, the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
There is no sin except stupidity.
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
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.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
I am not young enough to know everything.
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
Related Authors
Alexander Pope Quotes
English
Poet
Emily Dickinson Quotes
American
Poet
George Herbert Quotes
British
Poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
American
Poet
Homer Quotes
Greek
Poet
Horace Quotes
Roman
Poet
John Milton Quotes
English
Poet
Khalil Gibran Quotes
Lebanese
Poet
Lord Byron Quotes
British
Poet
Maya Angelou Quotes
American
Poet
Ovid Quotes
Roman
Poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes
English
Poet
T. S. Eliot Quotes
American
Poet
Walt Whitman Quotes
American
Poet
William Butler Yeats Quotes
Irish
Poet