Oscar Wilde Quotes - The Happy Prince and Other Tales

She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose.


Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.


Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.


Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.


Why, what a wonderful piece of luck! Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.

Oscar Wilde Quotes - The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Part 1)

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.


I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.


The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.


No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.


Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.


Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.


How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!


But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.


Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.


Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.


Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.


You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget.


A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.


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


She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.


I love acting. It is so much more real than life.


I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.


Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.


Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.


The basis of optimism is sheer terror.


Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot . . .

Oscar Wilde Quotes - The Importance Of Being Earnest

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.


Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?


The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.


To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.


London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.


Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink.

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

It is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

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

When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

Oscar Wilde Quotes - The Critic As Artist

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.


When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.

There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.


The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.


It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art


The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.


Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.


Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.


It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.