"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything."
Oscar WildeTiny Panda Quotes
Quotes by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer and poet, considered to be one of the best writers of the late Victorian era. He is known for his epigrams, his plays and his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's widely accepted that he published his first work at age sixteen in 1856, a collection of poems titled Poems. During this time, he wrote a series of love letters concerning Lord Alfred Douglas and Fanny D'arles which he later destroyed.
Learn more in our Tiny Panda blog post about Oscar Wilde.
70 quotes found
Share
"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."
Oscar Wilde"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."
Oscar Wilde"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection."
Oscar Wilde"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."
Oscar Wilde"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."
Oscar Wilde"Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity."
Oscar Wilde"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit."
Oscar Wilde"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
Oscar Wilde"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"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."
Oscar Wilde"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."
Oscar Wilde"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."
Oscar Wilde"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."
Oscar Wilde"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde"An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him."
Oscar Wilde"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."
Oscar Wilde"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."
Oscar Wilde"True friends stab you in the front."
Oscar Wilde"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde"I can resist everything except temptation."
Oscar Wilde"This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."
Oscar Wilde"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
Oscar Wilde"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."
Oscar Wilde"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."
Oscar Wilde"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself."
Oscar Wilde"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde"The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates."
Oscar Wilde"Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination."
Oscar Wilde"To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."
Oscar Wilde"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
Oscar Wilde"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."
Oscar Wilde"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."
Oscar Wilde"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
Oscar Wilde"Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."
Oscar Wilde"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
Oscar Wilde"Who, being loved, is poor?"
Oscar Wilde"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
Oscar Wilde"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."
Oscar Wilde"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."
Oscar Wilde"The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties."
Oscar Wilde"There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about."
Oscar Wilde"Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance."
Oscar Wilde"Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects."
Oscar Wilde"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is."
Oscar Wilde"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."
Oscar Wilde"How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being."
Oscar Wilde"I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything."
Oscar Wilde"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."
Oscar Wilde"Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."
Oscar Wilde"Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting."
Oscar Wilde"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."
Oscar Wilde"Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result."
Oscar Wilde"Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals."
Oscar Wilde"If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized."
Oscar Wilde"If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world."
Oscar Wilde"There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better."
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"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
Oscar Wilde"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
Oscar Wilde"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Oscar Wilde"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."
Oscar Wilde"Women are made to be loved, not understood."
Oscar Wilde"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
Oscar Wilde"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
Oscar Wilde"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."
Oscar Wilde"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
Oscar Wilde"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."
Oscar Wilde"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."
Oscar Wilde"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
Oscar Wilde