Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things.

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

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

I now see that sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type and test of all great art.

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Civilization is not by means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals.

What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art. A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection. The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious.

Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

One should either be a work of Art, or wear a work of Art.

Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.

Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation.

Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women...merely adored.

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.

The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.

Dear little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to.

Men as a rule love with their eyes, woman with their ears.

Men become old, but they never become good.

The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.

Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.