Quotes from Oscar Wilde

He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afriad.

He who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.

Nichts Interessantes ist jemals richtig.

He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young

You must admit, Harry, that women give to men the very gold of their lives.' 'Possibly,' he sighed, 'but they invariably want it back in such very small change.

Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.

that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

Lord Henry smiled. People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.

To live in happiness, you must know some unhappiness in life.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it.

The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but molds it to its purpose.

Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

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

One knows so well the popular idea of health: the English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the unbeatable.

Please, tell me the truth. The truth, who knows the truth? You've heart knows the truth.

To be good is to be in harmony with one's self. Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.

And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed; And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after. You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began. I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet.

The trouble with women is, that when they grow up, they turn into their mothers. The trouble with men is, that they don't.

Hallward shook his head. You don't understand what friendship is, Harry, he murmured—or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.

It would be unfair to expect people to be as remarkable as oneself.

Miss Prim says that all good looks are a snare.' 'They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.' 'Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.