Oscar Wilde Funny Quotations

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

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

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.

A chemist on each side will approach the frontier with a bottle

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.

The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

The English country gentleman galloping after the fox – the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.

Then there was a man who said, 'I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; by then it was too late'

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

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

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.

On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.

Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

True friends stab you in the front.

I can resist everything except temptation.