Quotes from Oscar Wilde

The moon in her chariot of pearl

I don't write this letter to put bitterness into your heart, but to pluck it out of mine. For my own sake I must forgive you.

I know. In fact, I am never wrong.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.

He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both.

every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.

Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth.

But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.

I analyzed you, though you did not adore me.

Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.

I didn't say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.

You are what you read.

To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal

Jack: "Gwendolen, wait here for me." Gwendolen: "If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON: We have. JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course. JACK: What fools.