Quotes from Oscar Wilde

He hasn't an enemy in the world, and none of his friend like him.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past.

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise [in the future. But only if we set out to make this true and anticipate it so we look for the blessings until we find them].

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.

What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

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

By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

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

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.

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

Nature is always behind the age.

35 is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.

One should never make one's debut in a scandal. One should reserve that to give interest to one's old age.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.