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Biographical Information
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Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
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.
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
A true friend stabs you in the front.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
All art is quite useless.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
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.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Everything popular is wrong.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
I can resist everything except temptation.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have nothing to declare except my genuis.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
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 see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
In married life three is company and two none.
In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
It is always the unreadable that occurs.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
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