Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The best one can say of modern creative art is that it is just a little less vulgar than reality. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“We should remember that all the arts are fine arts and all the arts decorative arts.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Every single work of art is the fulfillment of a prophecy; for every work of art is the conversion of an idea… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
They afterwards took me to a dancing saloon where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come… — 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 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
Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art. ...because of the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to lifeless forms must be… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“I blame myself without reserve for my weakness. It was merely weakness. One half-hour with Art was always more to me than… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
What of Art? -It is a malady. --Love? -An Illusion. --Religion? -The fashionable substitute for Belief. --You are a sceptic. -Never! Scepticism… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“He was conscious—and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes—that it was through certain words of his,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is a pity to make a mystery out of what should most easily be understood. There is nothing occult about the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“This is that CONSOLATION DES ARTS which is the key-note of Gautier’s poetry, the secret of modern life foreshadowed - as indeed… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The great and golden rule of art as well as of life, wrote William Blake, is that the more distinct, sharp and… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why… — 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 only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Art never expresses anything but itself. It has an independent life, just as thought has, and develops purely on its own lines… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
That is the mission of art - to make us pause and look at a thing a second time. — 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
