An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Schools should be the most beautiful place in every town and village-so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be barred… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
No publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Do you smoke? Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. I'm glad to hear of it. A man should always have an… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way. I don't think you should… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Oh, I love London Society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be. — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
LADY BRACKNELL: Do you smoke? JACK: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. LADY BRACKNELL: I'm glad to hear it. A man… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal.… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. Nothing spoils romance so much as… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
Out of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail 'round the high-pooped galleys... Dragons will wander about the waste places,… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. but… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the… — 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
Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to… — 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
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
Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body. — 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
