Famous Quotes by Oscar Wilde (417 Quotations)

She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.

Oscar Wilde – [Disgrace]

She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.

Oscar Wilde – [Weakness]

She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.

Oscar Wilde – [Desperation]

Skepticism is the beginning of Faith.

Oscar Wilde – [Skepticism]

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

Oscar Wilde – [Society]

Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.

Oscar Wilde – [Dreams]

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Oscar Wilde – [Happiness]

Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.

Oscar Wilde – [Sympathy]

Talk to a woman as if you loved her, and to a man as if he bored you.

Oscar Wilde – [Speakers and Speaking]

Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

Oscar Wilde – [Conversation]

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music — his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting — that which he himself employs. The aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can appreciate all forms and all modes. It is to him that Art makes her appeal.

Oscar Wilde – [Techniques]

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic — a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

Oscar Wilde – [Critics and Criticism]

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.

Oscar Wilde – [Critics and Criticism]

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Oscar Wilde – [Emotions]

The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.

Oscar Wilde – [Fathers]

The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.

Oscar Wilde – [Flirting]

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Oscar Wilde – [Attitude]

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

Oscar Wilde – [Children]

The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.

Oscar Wilde – [Sin]

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

Oscar Wilde – [Books and Reading]