To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
He is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
If one were to live his life fully and completely were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure. It gives it to us with bitterness and disappointment in its train. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity. — 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 am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Ethics, like natural selection, make existence possible. Aesthetics, like sensual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Newspapers. . . give us the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They chronicle, with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified.… — 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 but his prejudices his principles and his common sense. The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make and consequently are perfectly uninteresting… — 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 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
