Quotes from Oscar Wilde

There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it comes into existence.

I like looking at geniuses and listening to beautiful people.

What a silly thing love is! It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything and it is always telling one things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true.

I don't like compliments and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.

It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.

She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.

LORD ILLINGWORTH What do you think she'd do if I kissed her? MRS ALLONBY Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove? LORD ILLINGWORTH Fall in love with her, probably.

Muffins should always be eaten quite calmly, as it is the only way to eat them!

but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself

Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, Destiny never closed her accounts.

In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press.

When I was young I thought money was the most important thing in life, now that I'm old - I know it is!

It was always once springtime in my heart.

There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late

Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.

The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable!

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

He hadn't a single redeeming vice.

I have a business appointment that I am anxious... to miss.

Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.

The living always think that gold can make them happy

I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that.