Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Those who have much are often greedy, those who have little always share.

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

All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Authority is quite degrading

I may have said the same thing before...but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different.

Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.

In the wild struggle for existance, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.

Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.

Vulgarity is the conduct of other people, just as falsehoods are the truths of other people

Whatever harsh criticisms may be passed on the construction of her sentences, she at least possesses that one touch of vulgarity that makes the whole world kin.

As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked on as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized

Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching. Our splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national stupidity.

The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence.

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.

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.

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

An ordinary man away from home giving advice.

The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.