Oscar Wilde

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

I have nothing to declare except my genuis.

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.