Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.

The sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.

It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.

Nature: a place where birds fly around uncooked

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.

Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.

If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture.

Nature is a wet place where large numbers of ducks fly overhead uncooked.

It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings.

At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.

Genius learns from nature, its own nature. Talent learns from art.

It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.

The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.

Nature constantly imitates art.

The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can breakAnd peace of pardon win!How else may man make straight his pathAnd cleanse his soul from sin?How else but through a broken heartMay the Lord Christ enter in?

Beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.

Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow on another like the withered leaves of Autumn.

All great ideas are dangerous.

Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.