The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“For what is truth? In matters of religion, it is simply the opinion that has survived. In matters of science, it is… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
A temperament capable of receiving, through an imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“But in the case of an artist, weakness is nothing less than a crime, when it is a weakness that paralyses the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“for I wish rather, in this lecture at least, to dwell on the effect that decorative art has on human life -… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
'The Lady's World' should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us.… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“But I think it will bring you something besides this, something that is the knowledge of real strength in art: not that… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
What the artist is always looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Beauty ...is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour - that is all. It… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Music is the art... which most completely realizes the artistic idea and is the condition to which all the other arts are… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art.… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
“Basil my dear boy puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
“If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
Men always want to be a womans first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a mans last… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share
