Oscar Wilde

He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays.

Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.

The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art.

If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity.

For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners.

Newspapers have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied upon.

They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.

On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband's dinners.

I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm we had crossed each other's way: but we made no sign, we said no word, we had no word to say.

The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.

The mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-Г -brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.

Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

Who is that man over there? I don't 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!

A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.

Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.

If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties make it unbearable. In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it.

[T]he recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain, not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing is to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be.

There are moments when art attains almost to the dignity of manual labor.

Don't feed the trolls; nothing fuels them so much.

Authority is quite degrading.

One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.

Circumstances should never alter principles!

You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him.

I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice.

And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

She lives the poetry she cannot write.

Nature....she will hang the night stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send word the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.