Oscar Wilde

Though of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.

I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.

We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant.

There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes...

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?

Man is many things, but he is not rational.

It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, wi

I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.

To look wise is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.\' \'Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.\' \'Nobody ever does.

I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.

Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life.

It's beauty that captures your attention. personality which captures your heart.

If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh or they will kill you.

Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.