Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)
Irish essayist, novelist, playwright and poet.
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.
Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.
Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in the man.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.
All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.
Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.
Time is a waste of money.
From the beginning Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fate had taken the plot out of his hands.
And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.
An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellow's got to swing."
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.