Oscar Wilde And Quotations

One should never make one's debut in a scandal. One should reserve that to give interest to one's old age.

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything.

Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.

I was disappointed in Niagara -- most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.

The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly... men don't like it.

The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society. Only people who can't get into it do that.

The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.

In examinations, the foolish ask questions the wise cannot answer.

An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.

How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!

What the artist is always looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in which the outward is expressive of the inward: in which form reveals.

It is sweet to dance to violins When love and life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither

A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.

Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification.

Marriage is hardly a thing one can do now and then, except in America.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

By the artificial separation of soul and body men have invented a Realism that is vulgar and an Idealism that is void.

What you read when you don't have to...

Full frontal nudity is reserved for Adam and Eve!

Each of us has heaven and hell in him...

A misanthrope I can understand - a womanthrope never