Oscar Wilde

There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose.

The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

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

His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.

It is always the unreadable that occurs.

If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture...In a house, we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned for our use and our pleasure.

[E]verybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some …

Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance — And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

Tread Lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.

I cannot understand your nature. If my nature had been made to suit your comprehension rather than my own requirements, I am afraid I would have made a very poor figure in the world.

When a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.

There are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.

Heaven is a despotism. I shall be at home there.

Good kings are the enemies of democracy.

There is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.

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

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.

Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.

Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.