Oscar Wilde

The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.

Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard Some do it with a bitter look Some with a flattering word The coward does it with a kiss The brave man with a sword

This wallpaper is dreadful, one of us will have to go.

Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?

Punctuality is the thief of time

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations.

The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it.

The one advantage of playing with fire...is<br />that no one ever gets singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.

When people talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves they are nearly always interesting.

Learned conversation is either the affectation of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally unemployed.

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.

The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.

I never change, except in my affections.

Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.

This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose? Algernon. Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life. Jack. Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here. Algernon. That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.

You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.

Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.

The heart was made to be broken.

You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?