1856-1900, British Author, Wit
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
Oscar Wilde – [Smoking]
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.
Oscar Wilde – [Dreams]
A kiss may ruin a human life.
Oscar Wilde – [Kisses and Kissing]
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde – [Sincerity]
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Oscar Wilde – [Men and Women]
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde – [Enemies]
A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.
Oscar Wilde – [Moralists]
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
Oscar Wilde – [Faces]
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
Oscar Wilde – [Confession]
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
Oscar Wilde – [Ideals and Idealism]
A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people's toes.
Oscar Wilde – [Sensitivity]
A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Oscar Wilde – [Pessimism]
A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
Oscar Wilde – [Poetry and Poets]
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Oscar Wilde – [Sentiment]
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Oscar Wilde – [Truth]
A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.
Oscar Wilde – [Gentlemen]
Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.
Oscar Wilde – [Taste]
Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde – [Action]
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde – [Death and Dying]
All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde – [Arts and Artists]