Quotes By Oscar Wilde

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

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

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

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

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.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

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

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

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

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

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

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

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

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

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

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

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.

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

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.