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Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Oscar Wilde Quotes

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.

– Oscar Wilde

A family is a terrible incumbrance, especially when one is not married.

– Oscar Wilde

Vera, or The Nihilists

Men who are dandies and women who are darlings rule the world.

– Oscar Wilde

The Model Millionaire

Oscar Wilde dreamer quote

Yes: I am a dreamer. For 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

The Critic as Artist

It isn’t easy to be anything nowadays, there’s such a lot of beastly competition about. - Oscar Wilde

It isn’t easy to be anything nowadays, there’s such a lot of beastly competition about.

– Oscar Wilde

The Importance of being Earnest, Algernon, Act 1.

‘The Love that dare not speak its name’ in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect…It is in this century misunderstood…and on account of it I am placed where I am now.

– Oscar Wilde

During his trial on charges of indecency and sodomy in April 1895

I like looking at geniuses, and listening to beautiful people.

– Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Marchmont, Act 1.

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.

– Oscar Wilde

The Sphinx Without a Secret

It is love and the capacity for it that distinguishes one human being from another.

– Oscar Wilde

Ah, nowadays people marry as often as they can, don’t they? It is most fashionable.

– Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband, Lady Markby, Act 1.

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

– Oscar Wilde

In conversation, after prison.

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.

– Oscar Wilde

I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.

– Oscar Wilde

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

– Oscar Wilde

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain. - Oscar Wilde

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.

– Oscar Wilde

The Importance of being Earnest, Algernon, Act 1.

I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.

– Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 1.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

– Oscar Wilde

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

– Oscar Wilde

Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lord Darlington, Act 1.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

– Oscar Wilde

The Model Millionaire

If it were not for the running-ground at Eton, the towing-path at Oxford, the Thames swimming baths, and the yearly circuses, humanity would forget the plastic perfection of its own form, and degenerate into a race of short-sighted professors, and spectacled precieuses!

– Oscar Wilde

I would not have about me shallow fools,
Who with mean scruples weigh the gold of life,
And faltering, paltering, end by failure.

– Oscar Wilde

The Duchess of Padua

I don’t regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience.

– Oscar Wilde

I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do – the day after.

– Oscar Wilde

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

– Oscar Wilde

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope. - Oscar Wilde

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

– Oscar Wilde

A Woman of No Importance, Hester, Act 1.

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

An Ideal Husband, Lord Goring, Act 1.

The bride’s second great disappointment.

– Oscar Wilde

On Niagara Falls as American honeymoon destination

We live in the age of the over-worked, and under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.

– Oscar Wilde

The Critic as Artist

A true friend stabs you in the front.

– Oscar Wilde

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.

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