Oscar Wilde
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
True friends stab you in the front.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Who, being loved, is poor?
Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
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.
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 saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
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.
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
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.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
I can resist everything except temptation.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
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 want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
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 America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Only the shallow know themselves.
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.
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
There is no sin except stupidity.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
True friends stab you in the front.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
