Oscar Wilde Quotes

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

An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.

To define is to limit.

Everything is going to be fine in the end.
If it's not fine it's not the end.

So the swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets...

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way, And will not swerve aside: It slays the weak, it slays the strong, It has a deadly stride: With iron heel it slays the strong, The monstrous parricide!

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.

Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.

It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love

Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry, continual wrong. Personal property hinders Individualism at every step.