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Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes

Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes

Oscar Wilde is one of the wittiest writers of any era — his plays and other writings have stuck with us through the years and many of his famous quotes have been attributed and re-attributed to others.

Wilde quotes are great for teachers of the arts and especially theater — students of the arts should likewise familiarize themselves with Wilde’s humorous and insightful sayings.

Here’s a short list of some of Oscar Wilde’s most memorable quotes.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

Oscar Wilde

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

Oscar Wilde

I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.

Oscar Wilde

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Oscar Wilde

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

Oscar Wilde

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

Oscar Wilde

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

Oscar Wilde

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

Oscar Wilde

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde

I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.

Oscar Wilde

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Oscar Wilde

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

Oscar Wilde

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

Oscar Wilde

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

Oscar Wilde

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Oscar Wilde

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Oscar Wilde

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Oscar Wilde

One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

Oscar Wilde

Only the shallow know themselves.

Oscar Wilde

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Oscar Wilde

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

Oscar Wilde

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Oscar Wilde

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Oscar Wilde

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

Oscar Wilde

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

Oscar Wilde

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

Oscar Wilde

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

Oscar Wilde

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Oscar Wilde

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Oscar Wilde

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

Oscar Wilde

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

Oscar Wilde

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Oscar Wilde

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Oscar Wilde

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Oscar Wilde

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

Oscar Wilde

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde

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.

Oscar Wilde

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.

Oscar Wilde

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

Oscar Wilde

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

Oscar Wilde

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

Oscar Wilde

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Oscar Wilde

I have nothing to declare except my genuis.

Oscar Wilde

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

Oscar Wilde

A true friend stabs you in the front.

Oscar Wilde

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Oscar Wilde

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.

Oscar Wilde

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

Oscar Wilde

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

Oscar Wilde

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Oscar Wilde

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Oscar Wilde

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 9:03 am and is filed under Funny, Quotes, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes”

  1. jayashankar says:

    I am extremely happy with the quotations of oscar wilde, especilally

    1.I thinks God in creating man some what over estimated his capacity.

    2.Perhaps after all America never has been discovered.I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

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