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, whi… - Oscar Wilde

Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.

God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.

'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.

The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?