Quotes from Oscar Wilde

To have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can you want?

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.

I've put my genius into my life; I've only put my talent into my works.

You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that... The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. That is all.

For in art there is no such thing as a universal truth.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

Do you really think... that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment... there is no weakness in that.

Action, indeed... is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular.

Married men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.

No man should have a secret from his wife. She invariably finds it out.

With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.

A good friend will always stab you in the front.

The answers are all out there, we just need to ask the right questions.

God grant me the serenity to accept that people are ignorant, the courage to uphold the law when I'm hostile, & the wisdom to realize that murder is illegal.

In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.

Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight when we pursue them.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.