Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

Oscar Wilde's Quotes

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Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes them to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. 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. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.


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The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving. But for my pity and affection for you and yours, I would not now be weeping in this terrible place.


~ De Profundis (the Complete Text): a letter to his ex-lover Bosie Douglas, written while in Reading Gaol



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They do not sin at all
Who sin for love.


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I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.


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Public Opinion... is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community.


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Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.


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Good machinery is graceful... the line of strength and the line of beauty being one.


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I have found that all the ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.


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Aesthetics are higher than ethics. They belong to a more spiritual sphere. To discern the beauty of a thing is the finest point to which one can arrive.


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It is personalities, not principles, that move the age.


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Nowadays we are all of us so hard up, the only pleasant things to pay are compliments.


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I am a little too old now, myself, to trouble about setting a good example, but I always admire people who do.


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My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.


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A poet without hysterics is rare.


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I have never heard any man mention his brother. The subject seems distasteful to most men.


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Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy he is in harmony with himself and his environment.


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It is only the unimaginative who ever invent. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes, and annexes everything.


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We all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.


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I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.


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If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.


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[To a U.S. Customs official] I have nothing to declare except my genius.


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A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.


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Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or friendship, is conversation.


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People...go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realizing that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.

...Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.



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Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.


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I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts.


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You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless.


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It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.


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Behind Joy and Laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard, and callous. But behind Sorrow there is always Sorrow. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask.


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Misfortunes one can endure--they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults--ah!--there is the sting of life.


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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.


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If you want to know what a woman really means--which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do--look at her, don't listen to her.


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The books that the world calls immoral books are books that show the world its own shame.


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The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for.


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While, in the opinion of society, Contemplation is the gravest thing of which any citizen can be guilty, in the opinion of the highest culture it is the proper occupation of man.


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To know anything about oneself one must know all about others.


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The real fool, such as the gods mock or mar, is he who does not know himself.


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All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.


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One who is an Emperor and King may stoop down to pick up a brush for a painter, but when the democracy stoops down it is merely to throw mud.


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Life under a good government is rarely dramatic; life under a bad government is always so.


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Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.


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An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner.


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Next to having a staunch friend is the pleasure of having a brilliant enemy.


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From the sixteenth century to our own day there is hardly any form of torture that has not been inflicted on girls, and endured by women, in obedience to the dictates of an unreasonable and monstrous Fashion.


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Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are absolutely necessary.


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Familiarity breeds consent.

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Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.

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Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are what the world regards as one's mistakes.

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The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

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There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

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Children have a natural antipathy to books--handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.

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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

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To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

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A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

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There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

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There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

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The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilised being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.

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Men want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct about things. What (women) like is to be a man's last romance.

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

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He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.

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We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.


Find out more about Oscar Wilde here

Download Oscar Wilde's novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," hosted here, courtesy of Project Gutenberg

Download "Oscar Wilde, his Life and Confessions, Volume 1 hosted here, courtesy of Project Gutenberg



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