More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn't read. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“It's absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologize to one in private for what they… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to… — 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
Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Perhaps there may come into my art also, no less than into my life, a still deeper note, one of greater unity… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
“You are remarkably modern, Mabel. A little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek… — 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
To elope is cowardly; it is running away from danger; and danger has become so rare in modern life. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no… — 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
