Oscar Wilde

Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly.

A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.

What a fuss people make about fidelity! Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.

People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect -- simply a confession of failures.

Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

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.

It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Where there is no extravagance there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding.

When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.

An ordinary man away from home giving advice.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.

To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.

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

The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.

One should always play fair when one has the winning cards.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.