Oscar Wilde

Explore inspiring quotes by Oscar Wilde, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

140

Total Quotes

Top Categories by Oscar Wilde

Discover the themes and topics this author explores most

life

16 quotes

good

14 quotes

love

13 quotes

art

10 quotes

women

8 quotes

men

6 quotes

marriage

5 quotes

friendship

5 quotes

Featured Quotes by Oscar Wilde

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

"No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

— Oscar Wildeage

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."

— Oscar Wildeart

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

— Oscar Wildeart

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

— Oscar Wildeart

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

— Oscar Wildeart

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

— Oscar Wildeart

All Quotes by Oscar Wilde

Browse all quotes from this author

"No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

-Oscar Wilde

ageView Quote

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"All art is quite useless."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying."

-Oscar Wilde

artView Quote

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike."

-Oscar Wilde

attitudeView Quote

"There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better."

-Oscar Wilde

beautyView Quote

"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

-Oscar Wilde

bestView Quote

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."

-Oscar Wilde

bestView Quote

"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."

-Oscar Wilde

courageView Quote

"Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away."

-Oscar Wilde

deathView Quote

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation."

-Oscar Wilde

deathView Quote

"Biography lends to death a new terror."

-Oscar Wilde

deathView Quote

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

-Oscar Wilde

dreamsView Quote

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

-Oscar Wilde

educationView Quote

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

-Oscar Wilde

experienceView Quote

"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."

-Oscar Wilde

experienceView Quote

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

-Oscar Wilde

failureView Quote

"Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life."

-Oscar Wilde

familyView Quote

"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead."

-Oscar Wilde

foodView Quote

"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."

-Oscar Wilde

forgivenessView Quote

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."

-Oscar Wilde

forgivenessView Quote

"True friends stab you in the front."

-Oscar Wilde

friendshipView Quote

"An excellent man he has no enemies and none of his friends like him."

-Oscar Wilde

friendshipView Quote

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."

-Oscar Wilde

friendshipView Quote

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

-Oscar Wilde

friendshipView Quote

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

-Oscar Wilde

friendshipView Quote

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

-Oscar Wilde

futureView Quote

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."

-Oscar Wilde

godView Quote

"I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."

-Oscar Wilde

godView Quote

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"When good Americans die they go to Paris."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin."

-Oscar Wilde

goodView Quote

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

-Oscar Wilde

greatView Quote

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

-Oscar Wilde

greatView Quote

"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you."

-Oscar Wilde

greatView Quote

"Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm."

-Oscar Wilde

greatView Quote

"The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it."

-Oscar Wilde

greatView Quote

"Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go."

-Oscar Wilde

happinessView Quote

"This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."

-Oscar Wilde

hopeView Quote

"It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes."

-Oscar Wilde

hopeView Quote

"The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates."

-Oscar Wilde

imaginationView Quote

"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

-Oscar Wilde

intelligenceView Quote

"To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."

-Oscar Wilde

intelligenceView Quote

"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."

-Oscar Wilde

learningView Quote

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life now that I am old I know that it is."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

"The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life."

-Oscar Wilde

lifeView Quote

1 / 2

Other Authors to Explore

Explore more inspiring authors

View All Authors