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Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde Quotes

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Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes

“I was disappointed in Niagara - most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.”

PeopleIfsTakenTravelMarriedSightDisappointmentDisappointedBridesTourismMarried LifeWaterfallsNiagaraNiagara Falls
Book:The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
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“If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself - a rare type in our time ... you rise from table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!”

IfsMenTryingMomentsNextTypeConsciousIdealsIndependentTablesDearDinnerOur TimeTouchedEducate
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.”

IfsThinkingDestructionEssencePhilosophicalImmoral
Book:The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays: Lady Windermere's Fan; Salome; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest
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“They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.”

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Book:Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis
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“Do not be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do not believe them. The past, the present and the future are but one moment in the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of thought. The imagination can transcend them.”

PeopleIfsShouldTryingBelieveMomentsPastImaginationSpaceConditionsSightExtensionsTime And SpaceSuccessionIrrevocable
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis,
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“If a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. but if a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would move back again and again and beg to be admitted so that I might share in what I was entitled to share. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation.”

IfsFeelsShouldMindMightMovingHouseBitsFriendshipDoorsShareMinesSorrowMourningBitternessInvitesAgain And AgainEntitledHumiliationUnworthyBack AgainPoignant
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.”

IfsKnowsGivingTryingMindMeanDoePainPleaseCharmingTrue FriendDoing GoodReally True
Book:The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde
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“My sweet rose, my delicate flower, my lily of lilies, it is perhaps in prison that I am going to test the power of love. I am going to see if I cannot make the bitter warders sweet by the intensity of the love I bear you. I have had moments when I thought it would be wise to separate. Ah! Moments of weakness and madness! Now I see that would have mutilated my life, ruined my art, broken the musical chords which make a perfect soul. Even covered with mud I shall praise you, from the deepest abysses I shall cry to you. In my solitude you will be with me.”

IfsArtSoulMomentsWould BePerfectWiseCrySweetFlowerBrokenBearsSolitudeWeaknessTestsMadnessPraisePrisonRoseMusicalBitterCoveredIntensityDelicateRuinedMudAbyssChordsBeing WiseLiliesPower Of LoveDelicate LifeMoments Of WeaknessDelicate Flower
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.”

IfsMenShouldMeanChildrenSeriousIdealsTreatsRefuseMissionsGoddessRequestWhimCapriceIdeal Man
Book:The complete plays
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“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.”

IfsThinkingMenWayShouldKindDoeOpinionSelfishNeighbourMonstrous
Book:The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
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