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Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde Quotes

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Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes

“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions." "I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what is it; and for that the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldShouldHeartArtShowsRunningAgeBeautifulFormArtistHatePassionLostKnow HowPoetBrokenTreatsI HateAbstractMeant To BeGrayCriedBeautiful ThingsPortraitsAutobiographyPublicationWere Meant To BePortrait Of Dorian Gray
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)
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“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

WorldLoveLifeEndsSelfRomanceLove IsAnd LoveSexualityBreakupLoved OnesCynicalLost LoveDeceivingOne LoveDeceivedBeing In LoveHeart LoveKinds Of LoveWhat Is LoveWorld LoveLove AlwaysLove HurtMake You CryHearts And LoveWise LoveUltimate LoveTrue Love Never EndsCynical LoveLove And LostSad Valentines DayLove Is LostWorld And LoveLove ConnectionDeceiving OthersPhilosophers Love
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”

MenWorldDifferentRealPlaySufferingActorsLaughingComedyStageTearsMen And WomenTragedyCastsReal LifeFortunateShedMerryQualificationsJestPrince Hal
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.”

WorldMadeFactsStrongGivenImaginationSinCommonFeetDogCrimeBearsWeakChaosWickedLogicalRemorseThrustActual Life
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”

WorldLooksDoeCountryHumanityProgressSeeingLandMapsSailUtopiaLandingRealisation
Book:Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis
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“There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.”

IfsMenWorldGivingEndsMomentsBodySeemsMovingChoicesPassionLosesSinBrainTakenTerribleConscienceMen And WomenInstinctCellsImpulseCharmRebellionFearfulFascinationDisobediencePsychologist
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)
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“Any place you love is the world to you”, explained the pensive Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once- But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.”

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Author:Oscar Wilde
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“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.”

PeopleIfsWorldCommonAttitudeMoralAirExpressionPersonalityPrejudiceAbsurdInterfereCharmingDelightful
Book:The Picture Of Dorian Gray
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“It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with yourrose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame.”

WorldMadeDreamMightPassionMemoriesSleepSinWhiteBrainYouthRedShameFilledRoseMereTerrorGrayCheeksStainsBoyhood
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.”

WorldWantPainPassionIndividualGrowsConsciousnessLoversLaughterBreathsDustJealousAshesHeroines
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. He was invented by Turgenev, and completed by Dostoevsky. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau as surely as the People's Palace rose out debris of a novel. Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.”

PeopleWorldBelieveDoePurposeDiesLiteratureNovelStrangeProductsPagesRoseEnthusiasmCopiesMelancholyStakesMartyrPalacesAnticipatePuppetsMouldDebrisNihilist
Book:De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings
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“I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world… And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.”

WorldWantedSidesMistakeSunTreeShadowGardenFruitLitConfinedGloom
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.”

WorldNeedsFactsFormWaterDarkDivineGeniusHigherMoonReflectionExplanationSilverSunlightShellsSovereigntySpringtimeDivine RightDark Water
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

PeopleWorldMaySometimesWonderMysteryJudgingAppearanceInvisibleVisibleShallowSuperficialShallownessDo Not Judge
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)
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“Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.”

IfsMenWorldWayKindHas BeensMadeSaidSoulBodyHandsSeemsPainBeautifulSufferingPleasureAmountSorrowBuiltPerfectionExtraordinaryConvincedExplanationStatureBeautiful SoulBeautiful Body
Book:The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde
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“The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

IfsKnowsWorldShouldLooksMayArtPlayHandsSufferingGivenWealthBrainStupidThis WorldVictoryDefeatUglyRuinsAliensEaseGrayIndifferentLooking GoodStupid People
Book:Oscar Wilde Collection
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“How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”

IfsWorldWayGivingStillsSoulWholeEyeYoungGrowsParticularWhole WorldHorribleMy SoulFixedHis EyesGrayPortraitsJuneDorian GreyPortrait Of Dorian Gray
Author:Oscar Wilde
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“To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with Women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmered Dorian.”

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Book:The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde
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“What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colorless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.”

WorldGrowsSinRaceProgressTypeHigherMoralityEssentialsElementsEthicsIncreaseNotionCuriosityCurrentsRejectionIndividualismAssertionMonotonyColorless
Book:Intentions
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