1856-1900, British Author, Wit
The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.
Oscar Wilde – [Humankind]
The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious. The Bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their ''Hub,'' as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustles and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there.
Oscar Wilde – [Cities and City Life]
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
Oscar Wilde – [Perfection]
The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
Oscar Wilde – [Critics and Criticism]
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
Oscar Wilde – [Literature]
The English public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral.
Oscar Wilde – [Public]
The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach.
Oscar Wilde – [Colleges and Universities]
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde – [Slavery]
The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.
Oscar Wilde – [Books: Classics]
The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly… men don't like it.
Oscar Wilde – [Men and Women]
The first duty of life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one as yet discovered.
Oscar Wilde – [Duty]
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
Oscar Wilde – [Fiction]
The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.
Oscar Wilde – [Events]
The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret (understand). Great passion are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing visions have to paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.
Oscar Wilde – [Simplicity]
The greatest of all sins is stupidity.
Oscar Wilde – [Stupidity]
The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes.
Oscar Wilde – [Husbands]
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.
Oscar Wilde – [Men]
The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.
Oscar Wilde – [Intelligence and Intellectuals]
The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.
Oscar Wilde – [Lies and Lying]
The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
Oscar Wilde – [Generations]
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