Oscar Wilde

And he related also, with much gusto, how in a country-house he had told his host one evening that he had spent the day in hard literary work, and that, when asked what he had done, he had said, "I was working on the proof of one of my …

For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt.

She is not a subject.

After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second glass you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lip.

Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.

He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.

Tell me, when you are alone with him [Max Beerbohm] Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?

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

People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.

I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.

[On Bernard Shaw] An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.

Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.

The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.

All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.