Quotes from Oscar Wilde

He felt that life was changeful, fluid, active, and that to allow it to be stereotyped into any form was death. He saw that people should not be too serious over material, common interests: that to be unpractical was to be a great thing: that one should not bother too much over affairs. The birds didn't, why should man?

Come sono fortunati gli attori! Loro possono scegliere se recitare in una tragedia o in una commedia, se soffrire o gioire, ridere o piangere. Ma nella vita reale è diverso. Uomini e donne sono costretti per lo più a interpretare personaggi che non sono tagliati per loro. Ai nostri Guildenstern tocca il ruolo di Amleto, e i nostri Amleti devono fare i buffoni come il principe Hal. Il mondo è un palcoscenico, ma le parti sono mal distribuite.

There is nothing that art cannot express

Sincerity is the last refuge of the shallow.

Dorian to Harry 'Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it.

The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. 

the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect--simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness!

Every Saint has a past. Every Sinner, has a future.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art.

Kobiety broni? si?, atakuj?c, a atakuj?, ust?puj?c nagle w najmniej spodziewanym momencie.

Position and wealth are not everything.

Thou art the same: 'tis I whose wretched soul Takes discontent to be its paramour, And gives its kingdom to the rude control Of what should be its servitor,—for sure Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ''Tis not in me.' To

We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us.

Das wirkliche Leben war Chaos, aber es lag eine schreckliche Logik in der Phantasie.

Frank Harris has no feelings. It is the secret of his success. Just as the fact that he thinks that other people have none either is the secret of the failure that lies in wait for him somewhere on the way of Life.

He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood.

We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I mean everything that I have said.

Here are two chairs; let us sit down and see the smart people go by.

And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past.

have a wonderful instinct about things.  They can discover everything except the obvious.

To be good is to be in harmony with one's self

I am prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have all the surprise of candour.

Not worthy! Why, the whole world is nothing to me compared with her.