The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Hester, Act 1.
When good Americans die they go to Paris. And when bad Americans die, they go to America. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
A bad woman is the sort of woman a man never gets tired of. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
Young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Caroline, Act 1.
Hester: We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together. Lady Caroline: Ah! you must find it very draughty, I should fancy. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Caroline, Act 1.
I saw the governess, Jane…She was far too good-looking to be in any respectable household. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Caroline, Act 1.
Lady Caroline: In my young days, Miss Worsley, one never met anyone in society who worked for their living. It was not considered the thing. Hester: In America those are the people we respect most. Lady Caroline: I have no doubt of it. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
She certainly has a wonderful faculty of remembering people’s names, and forgetting their faces. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Caroline, Act 1.
But somehow, I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Mrs. Allonby, Act 1.
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Stutfield, Act 1.
The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years. To hear then talk one would imagine they were in their first childhood. As far as civilisation goes they are in their second. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
Lady Stutfield: The world was made for men and not for women. Mrs. Allonby: Oh, don’t say that, Lady Stutfield. We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
We women adore failures. They lean on us. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Mrs. Allonby, Act 1.
Lord Illingworth: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. Mrs. Allonby: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
Lady Hunstanton: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers? Lord Illingworth: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
Plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are! – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Mrs. Allonby, Act 1.
Lord Illingworth: Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman. Mrs. Allonby: Or the want of it in a man. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
Lady Hunstanton: Lord Illingworth, you don’t think that uneducated people should be allowed to have votes? Lord Illingworth: I think they are the only people who should. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
Mrs. Allonby: Have you tried a good reputation Lord Illingworth: It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 1.
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox – the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Illingworth, Act 3.
I am not at all in favor of amusements for the poor. Blankets and coal are sufficient. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lady Caroline, Act 1.
One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Lord Alfred, Act 1.
Hester. I dislike London dinner-parties. Mrs. Allonby. I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk. – Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance, Act 1.
