Oscar Wilde
Birthdate: October 16, 1854
Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
Date of Death: November 30, 1900
Occupation: Author, Playwright, and Poet
Profile: Best known for
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde
Number of Quotes: 65
After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar, and often convincing.
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
Be careful to choose your enemies well. Friends don't much matter. But the choice of enemies is very important.
Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Divorces are made in heaven.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
England never appreciates a poet until he is dead.
Examinations are of no value whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows
quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
I can believe in anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
I can resist everything except temptation.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too
careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.
I don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.
Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations with
myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
I only care to see doctors when I am in perfect health; then they comfort one, but when one is ill they are most depressing.
If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
In the old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But ... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased
opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiassed opinion is always absolutely valueless.
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious: both are disappointed.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Mrs. Allonby: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.
Lady Hunstanton: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?
Lord Illingworth: Oh, they go to America.
My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.
Next to having a staunch friend is the pleasure of having a brilliant enemy.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover,
when it is too late, that the only thing one never regrets are one's mistakes.
One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
One should always play fairly - when one has the winning cards.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.
The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.
The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
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.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease.
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very
highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
Those whom the Gods hate die old.
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
To lose one parent...may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist - the problem is entirely
the same in both cases. To know how much oil one must mix with one's vinegar.
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.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us find ourselves looking up at the stars.
When I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.
When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know that it is.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself; and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.
Where will it all end? Half the world does not believe in God, and the other half does not believe in me.
Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and are not.
Last on Earth
