Oscar Wilde

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.

Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you.

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang TsЗ' spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.

Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance Ђ' And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

If it took Labouchere three columns to prove that I was forgotten, then there is no difference between fame and obscurity.

God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and thenЂ'who knows?Ђ'rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.

Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They're the only things we can pay.

Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little often share.

Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.

Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

The world seemed to me fine because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived.

I like looking at geniuses and listening to beautiful people.

He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.

Before Turner there was no fog in London.

this woman is a genius in the day time and a beauty at night

That is the mission of art - to make us pause and look at a thing a second time.

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.

I don't regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience.

When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.

Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art

The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

You can have your secret as long as I have your heart[.]

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Requiescat Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast, I vex my heart alone She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life's buried here, Heap earth upon it.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices, there are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.

Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.