Quotes from Oscar Wilde

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

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.

You and I will always be friends. Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that.

And alien tears will fill for him pity's long broken urn. For his mourners will all be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.

Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable

Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain.

I am the only person I would like to know thoroughly

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

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.

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

Love is easily killed.

because to influence a person is to give one's own soul.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.

A burnt child loves the fire.

The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me.

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.