“I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Paradox though it may seem - and paradoxes are always dangerous things - it is none the less true that Life imitates… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Charity creates a multitude of sins. Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
In art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable… — 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
“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
While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“and over our heads will float the bluebird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
That very concentration of vision and intensity of purpose which is the characteristic of the artistic temperament is in itself a mode… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“I can not help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but your art.” “He is all my art to me now.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art… — 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
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.” — 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” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint… — 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
