Quotes About Oscar Wilde

Men have educated us. But not explained you. Describe us as a sex, was her challenge. Sphinxes without secrets.

The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.

I await the revises, and promise you not to 'make my quietus with a bare bodkin' till I have returned them. After that, I think of retiring. But first I would like to dine with you here. To leave life as one leaves a feast is not merely philosophy but romance.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become a public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

Out of the black cave of time, terrible and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.

I don't desire to change anything in England except the weather

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.  Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! Jack.  That wouldn't be at all a bad thing. Algernon.  Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow.  Don't try it.  You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University.  They do it so well in the daily papers. 

Jack.  [In a very patronising manner.]  My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl.  What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.

Detesto todos los argumentos! Son siempre vulgares, y a menudo convincentes.

Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs.

A misanthrope I can understand—a womanthrope, never!

What is the difference between scandal and gossip? Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip, but scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

That awful thing, a woman's memory!

Pero me es imposible no detestar a mi familia. Imagino que se debe a que nadie soporta a las personas que tienen sus mismos defectos.

JACK: Yes, but said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary. ALGERNON: It usen't to be, I know - but I daresay it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things.

No, as far as I am concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother.  Why should I interfere with her illusions? 

But this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really

As he passed out, he used to look with wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn grating the true story of their lives.

Sibyl Vane to love me! I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God, Harry, how I worship her! He was walking up and down the room as he spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was terribly excited.

I must confess that most modern mysticism seems to me to be simply a method of imparting useless knowledge in a form that no one can understand

He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.