The Wisdom of Oscar Wilde (5 page)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Gwendolen:
Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.
The Importance of Being Earnest
It is a humiliating confession, but we are all of us made out of the same stuff.
“The Decay of Lying”
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astonishing stupidity of optimism.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
But I like talking to a brick wall—it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
One should always be a little improbable.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
A Woman of No Importance
Similarly in
The Picture of Dorian Gray
When people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.
“The Critic as Artist”
Similarly in
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
To be popular, one must be a mediocrity.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is the passions about whose origins we deceived ourselves, that tyrannized most thoroughly over us.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
None of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
To reject one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development.
De Profundis
Considered as an instrument of thought, the English mind is coarse and undeveloped.
“The Critic as Artist”
It is so easy to convert others. It is so difficult to convert oneself.
“The Critic as Artist”
One should, of course, have no prejudices; but, as a great Frenchman remarked a hundred years ago, it is one’s business in such matters to have preferences, and when one has preferences, one ceases to be fair.
“The Critic as Artist”
If you wish to understand others, you must intensify your individualism.
“The Critic as Artist”
Industry is the root of all ugliness.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
I have always been of the opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
“The Relation of Dress to Art”
Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching. Our splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national stupidity.
“The Decay of Lying”
After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.
“The Critic as Artist”
Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of the ethical sphere, so the nuisance of the intellectual sphere is the man who is so occupied in trying to educate others, that he has never had any time to educate himself.
“The Critic as Artist”
Gilbert:
Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
“The Critic as Artist”
There is no reason why a man should show his life to the world. The world does not understand things.
De Profundis
The sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
De Profundis
I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
When one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
A moment may ruin a life.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Jack:
Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
The Importance of Being Earnest
We are beginning to be over-educated; at least everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching—that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to.
“The Decay of Lying”
Pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Authority is as destructive to those who exercise it as it is to those on whom it is exercised.
“The Case of Warder Martin:
Some Cruelties of Prison Life”
Similarly in “The Soul of Man under Socialism”
High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
“The Critic as Artist”
Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.
“The Critic as Artist”
There is no country in the world so much in need of unpractical people as this country of ours.
“The Critic as Artist”
What we want are unpractical people who see beyond the moment, and think beyond the day.
“The Critic as Artist”
It is very much more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual life that is of course obvious. Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
“The Critic as Artist”
The ages live in history through their anachronisms.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
The one duty we owe to history is to re-write it.
“The Critic as Artist”
The one charm of the past is that it is past.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
As one reads history, not in the expurgated editioins written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment that it is by the occasional occurrence of crime. It obviously follows that the more punishment is inflicted the more crime is produced....
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Plato had pointed out before how extreme liberty of democracy always resulted in despotism....
“The Rise of Historical Criticism”
The English mind is always in a rage. The intellect of the race is wasted in the sordid and stupid quarrels of second-rate politicians or third-rate theologians.
“The Critic as Artist”
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possible admire them.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone one who has read history, is man’s original virtue.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
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 so absolutely necessary.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
To the thinker, the most tragic fact in the whole of the French Revolution is not that Marie Antoinette was killed for being a queen, but that the starved peasant of the Vendee voluntarily went out to die for the hideous cause of feudalism.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of being poor.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
A Woman of No Importance
Lord Illingworth:
Moderation is a fatal thing.
Lady Hunstanton:
Nothing succeeds like excess.
A Woman of No Importance
Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oh! what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us!
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
The Portrait of Dorian Gray
Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Mrs. Erlynne:
I thought I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old. And it spoils one’s career at critical moments.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
Only the shallow know themselves.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
Time is waste of money.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
The Importance of Being Earnest
Mrs. Allonby:
Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a
mauvais quart d’heure
made up of exquisite moments.
A Woman of No Importance
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
What people call insincerity is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
“The Critic as Artist”
[Good resolutions] are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
