Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend upon it for their daily bread, and the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the… — 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
“To tell people what to read is, as a rule, either useless or harmful; for the appreciation of literature is a question… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“If they know nothing of death, it is because they know little of life, for the secrets of life and death belong… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one’s own race, nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them,… — 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
