Here is my collection of Oscar Wilde quotes. It took me forever to put all of these together, but here they are, in a rather chaotic order. My hope is that you read them and become charmed, but also that you stop and think about some of them...yes, they are sometimes frivolous and they are dandyisms, but they do contain more than just a sprinkling of truth.
"You will care much less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do."
"Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot."
"To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die."
"Liars ought to have good memories."
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
"Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream."
"The anticipation is terrible, I hope it lasts."
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
"In America, life is one long expectoration."
"I am not young enough to know everything."
"Only the shallow know themselves."
"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
"Wickedness is a myth invented by some people to account for the curious attractiveness of others."
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
"It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco."
"Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude."
"The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk."
"Life is too important to be taken seriously."
"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are lookin at the stars."
"One can survive anything these days except death, and live down anything, except a good reputation."
"Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms."
"The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality."
"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being about."
"Men always want to be a woman's first love; women like to be a man's last romance."
"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."
"Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations."
"Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer."
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
"Never speak disrespectfully of society. Only people who can't get into it do that."
"Are the commentators on Hamlet really mad, or only pretending to be?"
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
"Life can only be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards."
"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."
"Each time one loves is the only time one has ever loved."
"Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty."
"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."
"When the gods choose to punish us, they merely answer our prayers."
"An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young."
"A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty comes most easily to those who have no taste for it."
"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."
"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens without laughing."
"Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much."
"The condition of perfection is idleness; the aim of perfection is youth."
"One can give a really unbiased opinion only about things that do not interest one, which is no doubt the reason an unbiased opinion is always valueless. The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing."
"Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic."
"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."
"Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends."
"All art is quite useless."
(Sipping champagne on his deathbed) "Alas, I am dying beyond my means."
"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."
"Always tell the truth, it's a lot less to remember."
"Democracy simply means the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
"Experience is the one thing you can't get for nothing."
"I like Wagner's music better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without hearing what one says. That is a great advantage."
"The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain."
"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself."
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught."
