Oscar Wilde Quotes

But I didn’t say he was married. I said he was engaged to be married. There is a great difference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have no recollection at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think that I never was engaged.

Lady Hunstanton: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers? Lord Illingworth: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs.

For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.

It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously

The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword

nothing that is worth knowing can be taught

bardziej lubię ludzi niż zasady, a ponad wszystko lubię ludzi bez żadnych zasad.

And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity's machine.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

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

because to influence a person is to give one's own soul.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.

The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

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