The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The good we get from art is not what we learn from it; it is what we become through it. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
There are moments when art attains almost to the dignity of manual labor. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all” — 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
“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
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
“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
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 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
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
“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
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
“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
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
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
There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - "that cannot be denied to her; but… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“For the great eras in the history of the development of all the arts have been eras not of increased feeling or… — 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
“I remember once, in talking to Mr. Burne-Jones about modern science, his saying to me, ‘the more materialistic science becomes, the more… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and… — 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 Image
Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.” — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
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 Image
