Quotes from Ouida

The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves.

Belief of some sort is the lifeblood of Art.

There is a self-evident axiom, that she who is born a beauty is half married.

To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

It is only to those who have never lived that death ever can seems beautiful.

age is nothing but death that is conscious.

Woman's fatal weakness is to desire sympathy and comprehension.

Death! It is rest to the aged, it is oblivion to the atheist, it is immortality to the poet!

Youth without faith is a day without sun.

What we love once, we love forever. Shall there be joy in heaven over those who repent, yet no forgiveness for them upon earth?

The song that we hear with our ears is only the song that is sung in our hearts.

A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

Woman's fatal weakness is to desire sympathy and comprehension. --"Wanda

One must pray first, but afterwards one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards. --"Wanda

What we love once, we love forever. Shall there be joy in heaven over those who repent, yet no forgiveness for them upon earth? --"Wanda

To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

I only care for the subjective life; I am very German, you see: The woods interest me, and the world does not.

He mistook, as the cleverest men often do mistake, in underrating the cruelty of women.

No doubt the shortness of your memories is a very convenient thing for you; for without it I really don't know how you could have the conscience to repudiate your debts, swear in your witness boxes, take your marriage vows, traverse your divorce petitions, or do half the things that you do do. But, owing to the perfection of our remembrance, I can recall every trifle of the life that I then enjoyed with him.

Her life had been altogether artificial; she had always been a great garden lily in a hot-house, she had never known what it was to be blown by a fresh breeze on a sun-swept moorland like a heather flower. The hot-house shelters from all chills and is full of perfume, but you can see no horizon from it; that alone is the joy of the moorland.

Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.

The world never leaves one in ignorance or in peace.