Oscar Wilde

340 quotes

"The aim of life is self-development, to realize one's nature perfectly."

Oscar Wilde

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

Oscar Wilde

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

Oscar Wilde

"The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring."

Oscar Wilde

"The only way to even approach doing something perfectly is through experience, and experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

Oscar Wilde

"Crying is the refuge of plain women, but the ruin of pretty ones."

Oscar Wilde

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past."

Oscar Wilde

"Alas, I am dying beyond my means."

Oscar Wilde

"Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes."

Oscar Wilde

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

Oscar Wilde

"When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable."

Oscar Wilde

"In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

Oscar Wilde

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

Oscar Wilde

"The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation."

Oscar Wilde

"Only the shallow know themselves."

Oscar Wilde

"It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless."

Oscar Wilde

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."

Oscar Wilde

"The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us."

Oscar Wilde

"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

Oscar Wilde

"No, Ernest, don't talk about actionÖ. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream."

Oscar Wilde

"In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

Oscar Wilde

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

Oscar Wilde

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

Oscar Wilde

"Life is too important to be taken seriously."

Oscar Wilde

"The only difference between the saint and sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

Oscar Wilde