Quotes from Oscar Wilde

It was a poor thing she felt for anyone to be born a foreigner.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.

The only thing that sustains one  through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us.

The wind had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.

There is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.

Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian.

loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.

My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. 

That awful thing, a woman's memory!

El sufrimiento -por curioso que esto pueda parecerte- es el medio por el que existimos, y es el único medio por el que somos conscientes de existir; y el recuerdo del sufrimiento en el pasado nos es necesario como garantía, evidencia, de nuestra identidad continuada.

He had that rarest of all things, common sense.

there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England

My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about.

All imitation in morals and in life is wrong.  Through the streets of Jerusalem at the present day crawls one who is mad and carries a wooden cross on his shoulders.  He is a symbol of the lives that are marred by imitation. 

All'inizio i figli amano i genitori; diventando grandi li giudicano; qualche volta li perdonano

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. dup

She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.

To tell is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless.

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.

It is perfectly monstrous, the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

I don't see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose.

El pecado es el único elemento colorido que queda en la vida moderna