Quotes from Oscar Wilde

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly deceived.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadayssaying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.

Starvation, not sin, is the parent of modern crime.

Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry.

One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.

The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.

I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.

Self denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

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

Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life

There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.

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

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!

Marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men disagree

Children have a natural antipathy to books - handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.