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Portrait of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

(1854–1900) Essayist United Kingdom

3343 quotes in 3953 categories

Oscar Wilde’s lines sparkle with razor‑sharp humor and elegant paradox, offering a window into his keen observations on society, art, and human folly.

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Oscar Wilde was an essayist from the United Kingdom, best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Quick Facts About Oscar Wilde

Born: October 16, 1854
Died: November 30, 1900
Nationality: United Kingdom
Profession: Essayist
Notable works: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Known for: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Spouse: Constance Lloyd

About Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s. He was a key figure in the emerging Aestheticism movement of the late 19th century and is widely regarded the greatest playwright of the Victorian era. Wilde is best known for his Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), his epigrams, plays and bedtime stories for children, as well as his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency and for practicing homosexual acts.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Awards & Honors

Newdigate Prize

Quotes by Oscar Wilde

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Lowest

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Authority is quite degrading.

Authority

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“Genie währt länger als Schönheit.”

Beauty

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Wisdom comes with winters

Age

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Divorces are made in heaven.

Divorce

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All art is quite useless.

Art

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“Your days are your sonnets.”

Days

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One should always be in love.

Heart

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“And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”

Life

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A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Careful

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“nothing is worth doing except what the world says is impossible.”

Impossible

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She knew nothing but she had everything he had lost.

Funny

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The only way to get rid of tempation is to yeild to it.

Way

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They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.

Forever

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Life is a nightmare that prevents one from sleeping.

Life

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The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.

Aging

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America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.

America

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“Men always want to be woman's first love - women like to be men's last romance”

First love

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Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

Art

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You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

Commit

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It is very vulgar to talk about one's own business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then only at dinner parties.

Business

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The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a…

Books

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“To be good is to be in harmony with ones self. Discord is to be forces to be in harmony with others.”

Discord

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“should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But”

Books

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It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone…

Compliment

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“Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion.…

Love

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He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations…

Artist

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“That certainly seems a satisfactory explanation, does it not? – Yes dear, if you can believe him. – I don't. But that…

Beauty

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“That is one of the secrets of life - to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by…

Life

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“As he passed out, he used to look with wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow…

Men and women

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God grant me the serenity to accept that people are ignorant, the courage to uphold the law when I'm hostile, & the…

Accepting

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Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why…

Art

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“Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I don't care what shame comes on you. You…

Refuse

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There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America. It was not until I had seen…

America

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“For each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not die he does not die a death of shame…

Capital punishment

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“There is indeed a poetical attitude to be adopted towards all things, but all things are not fit subjects for poetry. Into…

Absolute truth

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“A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can…

Emotional life

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“Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. "Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the…

Basil

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God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be…

Contemplating

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“He used to wonder at the shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing simple, permanent, reliable…

Psychology

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Oscar Wilde by topic

Life (421) Art (310) Love (301) Artist (231) Men (222) Time (160) Inspirational (160) People (151) Beauty (126) World (124) Should (102) Marriage (98) Funny (80) Poetry (78) Nature (77) Passion (74) Truth (72) Books (71) Character (69) Ifs (60) Humor (59) Soul (58) Giving (58) Beautiful (58) Writing (57)