Quotes from Oscar Wilde

there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not a single wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid.

Men have educated us. But not explained you. Describe us as a sex, was her challenge. Sphinxes without secrets.

Hay muchas cosas de las que nos desprenderíamos si no tuviéramos miedo de que otros las recogieran.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with grasses waving up above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. 'You can help me. You can open for me the portals of Death's house, for Love is always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is.

Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. 

Pero, ¿y el retrato? ¿Qué iba a decir del retrato? El lienzo de Basil Hallward contenía el secreto de su vida, narraba su historia. Le había enseñado a amar su propia belleza. ¿Le enseñaría también a aborrecer su propia alma? ¿Volvería alguna vez a mirarlo?

The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandperes ont toujours tort.

Mediaevalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods—Mediaevalism is real Christianity, and the mediaeval Christ is the real Christ.  When the Renaissance dawned upon the world, and brought with it the new ideals of the beauty of life and the joy of living, men could not understand Christ. 

A ti te gusta todo el mundo, o lo que es lo mismo, no te importa nadie

The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people-that is all.

A un niño con quemaduras le gusta el fuego

I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.

Conciencia y cobardía son lo mismo realmente, Basil. La conciencia es el nombre comercial de la empresa. Eso es todo

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.

The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.

I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But

Moral grounds are always the last refuge of people who have no sense of beauty.

For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is engaged to be married to any one.

Cuando somos felices siempre somos buenos, pero cuando somos buenos no siempre somos felices

I await the revises, and promise you not to 'make my quietus with a bare bodkin' till I have returned them. After that, I think of retiring. But first I would like to dine with you here. To leave life as one leaves a feast is not merely philosophy but romance.