There is no doubt that Oscar Wilde was one of the most witty men to come from the British Isles and probably the world. It is virtually impossible to find anything he wrote which did not show at least a glimmer of his genius. This is a selection of 40 of his greatest quotations.
Quotations 1 – 10
1. A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
2. A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
3. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
4. America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
5. Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
6. Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
7. Biography lends to death a new terror.
8. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
9. I am not young enough to know everything.
10. I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Quotations 11 – 20
11. I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. [Note: remember Top 10 tips for great writing?
12. Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
13. It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
14. Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
15. One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
16. Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
17. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
18. The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
19. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
20. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Quotations 21 – 30
21. To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
22. Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
23. The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
24. I don’t play accurately-any one can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
25. When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
26. Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
27. My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people’s.
28. I can resist anything but temptation.
29. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
30. Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Quotations 31 – 40
31. Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
32. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
33. What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
34. Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
35. We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
36. The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
37. The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
38. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
39. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
40. I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Technorati Tags: Oscar Wilde, quotations
Great quotes. 32 is definitely me.
wonderful list! love Wilde.
Nice to see support for a fellow Irishman! I’ve always enjoyed Wildes works and I think you’ve picked some great quotes that really show off his genius.
Sean the pryo: heh – that is one of my favorite quotes of Wilde. I tend to alternate between the stars and the road!
Cyn: Thanks – he is one of my favorite writers – his short stories are breathtaking.
Anthony: I have Irish in me too – I couldn’t leave Oscar off the site!
It’s posts like this that just make me come back for more.
JT: Rendered speechless in the light of Wilde’s brilliance?
Che: that is great! I am going to try to dig up some more on the ’90′s – it was a great time and will be an excellent source of more lists I think. I am just trying to think of some way to get Aubrey Beardsley in to one of these lists.
I think a book of Oscar Wilde quotes would be 1000+ pages, haha. I actually have a giant paperback book of all his works. I love picking it up and reading a poem or two from time to time.
Hmmmm my comment didnt post. Shame, it was actually a really good one too.
Beautiful =)
I think my favorite is 36.
Oh, I was so excited to see this list! Sad thing is I think I have read them all before. I LOVE Wilde, I think we could have been great friends if we had existed at the same time. =P
Sweet. Whenever I want a snarky quote, I go to Wilde and also Ambrose Bierce, author of the Devil’s Dictionary.
Quite fun.
Great list, I mean, the guy was a genius, extremely talented and funny, but comments like “I LOVE Wilde, I think we could have been great friends if we had existed at the same time. =P” What!?
Has everybody just forgotten about his rampant paedophilia? I understand this list’s a celebration of his comic sharpness, but how did nobody mention he was arrested, spent time in prison and eventually went into hiding over screwing young boys? (JF – He’s dead, he can’t sue you for this..Not to mention it’s true)
Why not read The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde by Neil McKenna..
In todays society he would be branded a paedophile, forced to sign the ***** offenders register and no doubt live out his life, albeit a clever one, in an embarrassed recluse, probably on a farm with a couple of scared-looking barnyard animals.
Very funny bloke though..
He also said that, “The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”
Bojan: last time I looked the Republic of Ireland was still a part of the islands comprising the British Isles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_isles
….well you could also say he came from Europe as these are geographical locations, saying someone comes from the British Isles is far to general, in other words every Irish person comes from Ireland, as some people still think that Ireland is part of Britain. Look up Irish writers in wikipedia, most are down as coming from Britain, the UK but not from Ireland in incorrect statements, wikipedia is often wrong.
Oscar Wilde was Irish. He didnt “come out of the British Isles”
“Nice to see support for a fellow Irishman! I’ve always enjoyed Wildes works and I think you’ve picked some great quotes that really show off his genius.”
I hate it when people bring attention to the fact that they have Irish ancestry, and that way they say (or type it) in a way that makes them feel self-satisfied and better than other people.
this is a great list. i love using oscar wilde’s quotes in my essays – there’s always something for every theme. shame my favourite one’s not on here, though. “a man’s face is his autobiography. a woman’s face is her work of fiction.”
You know, I was reading a book of his plays today, and I adore his dry wit… And you know, I was horrified (well, maybe not, but rather surprised) to find out that a majority of my friends were not only unfamiliar with his work, but that they’d never even heard of him! Terrible, absolutely terrible.
Oscar Wilde ranked 3rd on my list of the coolest people ever.
RE: #36
I did not know Neil Peart plagerized Oscar Wilde?
er…#32
I would like to know which of these he said “as” himself, and which he put into the mouths of his characters. A quotation put into the mouth of a character doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the author. In one play, one character says something like “Australia must be such a pretty country with all those kangaroos flying around”. Wilde himself didn’t believe that.
Even saying ‘ “as” himself’ is problematic. How much of Oscar Wilde’s life and writing was actually “himself”, and how much was a carefully calculated pose? The same might be said about Eminem and Marilyn Manson, for eg.
I have set 5 of his poems to music. Most of his poems are pretentious, drawing on his background as a prize-winning classics scholar.
I love how half the humour in these Oscar Wilde quotes is implied by what he isn’t saying. Like,
“One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.”
It’s as if he’s (or his character) is saying one should be magnanimous when in power but not necessarily when in a losing position. Like it’s ok to be underhanded
Brilliant! Going through a breakup currently and your site has helped me take a break and forget my loss enough to keep my sanity;)
this year in my school we’re doing “The Importance of Being Earnest.” It’s so much fun.
“all women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man ever does. That is his.”
Given the scandal(s) of Oscar’s life, I was surprised to learn that he had a less respectable brother: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Wilde
I love number 22
Wilde was his own genius. May I pick up on jfrater? Use Wikipedia lightlty my friend for it is generic, the republic of Ireland is exactly that a ‘republic’ where the great and late Wilde was born. Peace X
He was IRISH, and very proud of it. he didnt reguard him self as british in any way!
Sorry to be pedantic Lolly – but I believe the Irish Republic followed the Irish Free State created in the 1920′s. Long after Wilde was born in Dublin – at the time, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. But ‘for all that’ (to misquote Robbie Burns) what really matters, is that for all his faults and foibles he left us a body of work that still enriches our lives to this day. Perhaps his detractors should consider judging his work and not the man.
I feel perfectly dreadful saying this, but Fun Fact, everyone: Oscar Wilde was human (I know it’s hard to believe; I originally thought he might have been some previously undiscovered species of owl). We can laud his genius all we please, but it’s well to remember that most of his wit was calculated. He would sit and prepare monologues and repartees hours or days before an event, or would rework lines in plays to death to give them just the right “zing.” Proof of such preparation is in the words of Willie Wilde: elder brother of Oscar, alcoholic, and alleged home to a tapeworm (no lie).
Another Fun Fact: Oscar Wilde was notoriously awful at math. According to him, 2 plus 2 COULD equal five (if he wanted it to), and there are “a lot” of minutes in an hour. How cute.
I really do love His Majesty, don’t mistake my meaning… but I feel a cur because I love him for being the awkward, tubby, unbathed, crooked-tooth’d, wonderfully dysfunctional, beautifully broken amalgam of identity crises that he was.
PS: @ all users who have dubbed His Majesty the Queen a paedophile: As a member of Oscar-Dear’s “preferred gender and age-range,” I can say with certainty that, circumstances allowing and time travel possible, I would have absolutely zero qualms with receiving the romantic attentions of the chap in question. I would not feel “victimized” by a “paedophile.”
Thank you for reading. Now I shall once again slip back into the woodwork, not to return until I need to defend him/verbally adore him again.
#34 blew me away… what a wonderful, insightful quote.
Is there a quote from Wilde criticizing the English for taking away the Irish language from the Irish and marveling at the way that the Irish took the English language to places it would never have gone without their brilliance? I one time heard Malachi McCourt spit out a great quote on this subject and I think it was Wilde whom he quoted. Does anybody know what I’m talking about
My favourite is “there are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
Isn’t he the one who said : “To quit smoking is a very easy thing : I quit several times everyday.”?
That quote was from Mark Twain
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Have you ever been there? What was that experience like?
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Thanks for the wonderful information- just wondering if anyone else has had any relevant experiences to share
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he is the best of the best
and he is gay
one of his fav ones for me and its not mentioned here
"when a man remarries, its because he adored his first wife"
i strongly believe so , because if he didn't love her, he wouldn't be stupid enough to make the experience twice
just as love, even though sometimes we r left heartbroken , we still go through it, for a second, third, and fourth time, cuz we REALLY enjoyed and loved the first one
same with anything else that u loved the first time u tried it
One Oscar Wilde quote I love that was not mentioned is from The Importance Of Being Earnest: "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
Name
I’ve never read anything from him but I think now i may.
Another great quote by Oscar Wilde is “Agiators and meddlers are essential in the world,for without them progress cannot be made.”
“The British Isle’s” Bull*****! He was IRISH for ***** sake!