Quotes from Oscar Wilde

In fact, he was dressed for the character of 'Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,' one of his most remarkable impersonations

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should not probably forget all about them.

Mere words.. Was there anything so real as words?

Rugged and straightforward as he was, there was something in his nature that was purely feminine in its tenderness

You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is. Wealth has given me enormous power. It gave me at the very outset of my life freedom, and freedom is everything.

It was only in the theatre that I lived.

He sees all the lovely influences of life as modes of light: the imagination itself is the world of light. The world is made by it, and yet the world cannot understand it: that is because the imagination is simply a manifestation of love, and it is love and the capacity for it that distinguishes one human being from another.

My first impressions of people are invariably right.

Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions.

Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty

Oh my dear fellow...should you not be askind, 'Would the tea like the cup?

I am not going to Egypt,' said the bird. 'I am going to the House of Death.' He kissed the prince and fell down dead at his feet.

It is very vulgar to talk about one's business.

Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.

When I see a spade I call it a spade. I'm glad to say I have never seen a spade!

She sang of the Love that is perfected by death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.

The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets she took him.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.

Wishing to make an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water fell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his left shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment he heard stifled shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed.

What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

In war,' answered the weaver, 'the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. 

To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies. A delightful theory! she exclaimed. I must put it into practice. A dangerous theory! came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened. Yes, he continued, that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.