Quotes from Oscar Wilde

As one reads history ... one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted.

A community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurence of crime.

Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent.

It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously

Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

It is a very dangerous thing to know one's friends.

I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

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

Anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimagininative.

The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.

Imagination is imitative-the real innovation lies in criticism.

The best way to enjoy your job is to imagine yourself without one.

There is no sin except stupidity.

You are Beautiful when you are happy

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

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

I can believe anything provided it is quite incredible.

Every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character.

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.