Oscar Wilde

That very concentration of vision and intensity of purpose which is the characteristic of the artistic temperament is in itself a mode of limitation. To those who are preoccupied with the beauty of form nothing else seems of much importance.

The best way to appreciate your job is to, is here to stay.

If you cannot prove a man wrong, don't panic. You can always call him names.

Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes.

I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid

We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.

You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.

I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.

I gave my genius to my life, but my talent to my art.

There is no man who is not, at each moment, what he has been and what he will be.

True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.

There are few things easier than to live badly and die well.

The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

Always keep love in your heart.

I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.

Most people are other people.

Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, upon the other hand, forgetting that that imitation can be made the sincerest form of insult, keeps on repeating this effect until we all become absolutely wearied of it.

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,<br />At seven all was still,<br />But the sough and swing of a mighty wing<br />The prison seemed to fill,<br />For the Lord of Death with icy breath<br />Had entered in to kill.

Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.

The truth about the life of a man is not what he does, but the legend which he creates around himself.

I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock.

A man who pays his bills on time is soon forgotten.

The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your

And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.

When a golden girl can win Prayer from out the lips of sin, When the barren almond bears, And a little child gives away its tears, Then shall all the house be still And peace come to Canterville.

Anybody can sympathise with all the sufferings of the pal, nevertheless it involves an extremely great mother nature to sympathise by using a friend's achievement.

Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world - it dreams away its life in the Conca d'Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.

When I ask for a water cress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.

The proper school to learn art is not life but art