Quotes About Oscar Wilde

Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair.

To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.

There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about it's use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.' 'It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it.

Do you smoke? Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. I'm glad to hear of it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.

And alien tears will fill for him pity's long broken urn. For his mourners will all be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. And falsehoods the truths of other people. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious. Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense. Nobody ever does.

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough.

I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean .... I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. Dance for me, Salomé, I beseech you. If you dance for me you may ask of me what you will, and I will give it you, even unto the half of my kingdom.

What a fuss people make about fidelity! exclaimed Lord Henry. Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces false impression

Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.

How clever are you, my dear! You never mean a single word you say!

The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

It is very wrong to kill any one[.] Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!