Quotes from Oscar Wilde

It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-morrow.

My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don't see why I shouldn't give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of ant use to oneself.

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomat - the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know how much oil to mix in with one's vinegar.

Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life.

How does one cure the soul? Through the senses

Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

Jack: "Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?" Gwendolen: "I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words

Love - well, not love at first sight, but love at the end of the season, which is so much more satisfactory.

LADY BRACKNELL I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. ALGERNON I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are the artist's materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feelings, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectators, and not life, that art really mirrors.

The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives.

I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.

When he takes the knife to the canvass the servants find him lying dead with a knife through is heart and withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. and the portrait in all the wonders of his exquisite youth and beauty. p 349

JACK You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax. GWENDOLEN Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.

Women have no appreciation of good looks—at least, good women have not.

Prism! Where is that baby?

Why didn't you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?

When he [Christ] says 'Forgive your enemies', it is not for the sake of the enemy but for one's own sake that he says so, and because Love is more beautiful than Hate.

For each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not die he does not die a death of shame on a day of dark disgrace nor have a noose about his neck, nor a cloth upon his face nor drop feet foremost through the floor into an empty space He does not sit with silent men who watch him night and day Who watch him when he tries to weep and when he tries to pray Who watch him lest himself should rob the prison of its prey

Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

Women try their luck; men risk theirs.