Oscar Wilde Quotes

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

"Art never expresses anything but itself."

"Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living."

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril."

"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed."

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

"The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated."

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy."

"Outcasts always mourn."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

'Do you really think ... that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not -- there is no weakness in that.'

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror.'

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

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

"When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong."

"Better the rule of One, whom all obey,

Than to let clamorous demagogues betray

Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy."

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But ... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."

"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."

"The fact is, that 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. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends."

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

"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands."

"There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

"The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read."

"The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women ... merely adored."

"All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction."

"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."

"All great ideas are dangerous."