Oscar Wilde

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of …

The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so …

Criticism will annihilate race-prejudices by insisting upon the unity of the human mind in the variety of its forms.

One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

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.

England has done one thing; it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.

Ah! Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

There is no sin except stupidity.

To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

It is to do nothing that the elect exist. Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.

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

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

As for modern Journalism, its not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.

Action ... is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.

The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

Puritans cannot destroy a beautiful thing, yet, by means of their extraordinary prurience, they can almost taint beauty for a moment. It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because …

Oh! journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read.

Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.