Quotes from Oscar Wilde

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Philanthropy is the refuge of rich people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.

Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex.

Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.

Sometimes it takes courage to give into temptation.

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

The English public takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral.

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

The only charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.

The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.

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.

The problem with the common person is that he is so unbearably common!

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.

The true craftsman has a light in his eye that Money can't buy Hal Stebbins I read this once when I was Writing a children's story; a time when inspiration had struck...At that time I knew just what he meant...It was so true. Shirley Briggs

There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,By each let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The koward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.