Oscar Wilde

It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.

The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Genius lasts longer than beauty

When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.

I must remember that a good friend is a new world.

Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play, even if it is only for an act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with awe.\' \'You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?\' He shook his head. \'To night she is Imogen,\' he answered, \'and tomorrow night she will be Juliet.\' \'When is she Sibyl Vane?\' \'Never.\' \'I congratulate you.

I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity.

People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.

It's tragic how few people ever 'possess their souls' before they die. 'Nothing is more rare in any man', says Emerson, 'than an act of his own.' It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their life is a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces false impression

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.

When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

I hope you hair curls naturally, does it? Yes, darling, with a little help from others.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

I am happy in my prison of passion

I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.

A burnt child loves the fire.

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.

There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I suppose.

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

I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.

I played with an idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air; transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox.

But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.

It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institutions of private property.

The camera, you know, will never capture you. Photography, in my experience, has the miraculous power of transferring wine into water.

Only the unimaginative can fail to find a reason for drinking Champagne