Oscar Wilde quotes - page 48

He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone. (Oscar Wilde)
Nobody of any real culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of sunset. Sunsets are quite old fashioned. . . . To admire them is a distinct sign of provincialism of temperament. Upon the other hand they go on.
Oscar Wilde
Who is that man over there I don't know him. What is he doing Is he a conspirator Have you searched him Give him till tomorrow to confess, then hang him -- hang him.
Oscar Wilde
What is said of a man is nothing. The point is, who says it.
Oscar Wilde
I played with an idea, and grew willful tossed it into the air transformed it let it escaped and recaptured it made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox.
Oscar Wilde
What a fuss people make about fidelity Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not old men want to be faithless, and cannot that is all one can say.
Oscar Wilde
By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful.
Oscar Wilde
Philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.
Oscar Wilde
Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.
Oscar Wilde
Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
Oscar Wilde
Real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins. (Oscar Wilde)
Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice plump missionary.
Oscar Wilde
Lord Darlington (LD) I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. Lady Windemere (LW) If we had hard-and-fast rules' we would find life much simpler. LD You allow of no exceptions LW None LD Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, LW. LW The adjective was unnecessary, LD.
Oscar Wilde
Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.
Oscar Wilde
It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat.
Oscar Wilde
With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.
Oscar Wilde
A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.
Oscar Wilde
It is to do nothing that the elect exist. Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.
Oscar Wilde
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.
Oscar Wilde
Art is this intense form of individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.
Oscar Wilde
The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. All the results of the mistakes of governments are quite admirable. (Oscar Wilde)
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.
Oscar Wilde