Oscar Wilde

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.

We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent.

Books are never finished, They are merely abandoned.

Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's lumber

If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself - a rare type in our time ... you rise from table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!

To have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered.

There can be nothing more frequent than an occasional drink.

Art never expresses anything but itself.

Too much work, and no vacation, Deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses, Work's the curse of the drinking classes.

Oh, I love London Society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.

The Americans are certainly hero-worshipers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

Sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation.

It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm.

Then there was a man who said, 'I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; by then it was too late'

One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about.

The best way to enjoy your job is to imagine yourself without one.

No man should have a secret from his wife. She invariably finds it out.

I was disappointed in Niagara - most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.

When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.

The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him.

Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.

To be in love is to surpass one's self.

Ah! somehow life is bigger after all<br />Than any painted angel could we see<br />The God that is within us!

Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.