Quotes from Oscar Wilde

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

He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.

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

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

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

É o espectador, e não a vida, que a arte, na verdade, espelha.

Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.

in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with.  Girls don't think it right.

Art is rarely intelligible to the criminal classes.

One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy.

And self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law.  It is so demoralising to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself.  They always go to the bad.

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie If this night before God's throne should stand.

Women treat us just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them', answered Lord Henry, toying with some fruits. 'I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us,' murmured Dorian Gray, gravely. 'They create Love in our natures. They have a right to demand it bac'k.

I hardly think that any Socialist, nowadays, would seriously propose that an inspector should call every morning at each house to see that each citizen rose up and did manual labour for eight hours.

I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.

Ningún artista es morboso. El artista está capacitado para expresarlo todo.

Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed." "I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do everything that you say.

There is a luxury in self-reproach.

I am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.

Art, even the art of fullest scope and widest vision, can never really show us the external world. All that it shows us is our own soul, the one world of which we have any real cognisance. And the soul itself, the soul of each one of us, is to each one of us a mystery. It hides in the dark and broods, and consciousness cannot tell us of its workings. Consciousness, indeed, is quite inadequate to explain the contents of personality. It is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep! O silence of the sunless day! O still ravine! O stormy deep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had had any hearts at all.

Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?