Oscar Wilde's phrases, famous aphorisms and quotes on life, beauty and women, thoughts of friendship of this writer and poet, as well as Irish journalist.
Quotes by Oscar Wilde
- No man is truly successful in this world, unless he has a woman behind him, since it is women who govern society. If you don't have women by your side, you are out of this world.
- Good intentions have been the ruin of the world. The only ones who accomplished anything in the world were those who had no intention.
- A sentimental is simply someone who wants to have the pleasure of an emotion without paying for it.
- No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would stop being an artist.
- Women love us for our shortcomings. If we have enough, they forgive us everything, even our intelligence.
- Beauty is a form of the Genius, indeed, it is higher than the Genius because it requires no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, such as sunlight, spring, the reflection in the dark water of that silver shell that we call the moon.
- I choose my friends for their beauty, my knowledge for their respectability, and my enemies for their intelligence.
- Living is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist and nothing more.
- Those who sin for love do not sin at all.
- Dream as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die today.
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- In all matters not important, style, not sincerity, is the essential.
- Sometimes it is better to keep silent and look stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubts.
- A senseless morality of the paradox is vulgar.
- Always forgive your enemies. Nothing angers them more.
- Give me luxury, and anyone can keep what they need.
- Be yourself, everything else has already been taken.
- I never speak while listening to music, or at least in the execution of good music. If you listen to bad music, it's a duty to cover it up with conversation.
- We were all born in the mud, but some of us look to the stars.
- You must always play honestly when you have the winning cards.
- Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
- Not inventing absolutely anything is an act of pure genius and, in a commercial era like ours, indicates considerable physical courage.
- On exams, fools often ask questions that wise men cannot answer.
- There are no omens: fate does not send heralds. It is too wise or too cruel to do it.
- I love talking about nothing. It is the only topic I know all about.
- None of us can bear that others have the same flaws as us.
- Life is too short to waste it on realizing the dreams of others.
- In a very dry and practical era, the arts are not inspired by life, but by each other.
- In this world there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it. This second is the worst, the real tragedy.
- Women have a wonderful instinct, they discover everything, less what is evident.
- I have very simple tastes, I am always satisfied with the best.
- In art, good intentions do not have the least value. All the worst art is the result of good intentions.
- Experience is the most difficult type of teacher. First he takes the exam, then he explains the lesson.
- No man is rich enough to redeem his past.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
- Dying for one's faith is the worst use a man can make of his life.
- I can resist anything but temptations.
- Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing is as successful as excess.
- There is one thing in the world worse than being talked about: not being talked about.
- I like men who have a future and women who have a past.
- Loving yourself is the beginning of an idyll that lasts a lifetime.
- Man can believe in the impossible, but he will never believe in the improbable.
- There are people who know everything and unfortunately that's all they know.
- I always amaze myself.It is the only thing that makes life worth living.
- The soul is born old and becomes young: here is the comedy of life. The body is born young and becomes old: here is the tragedy of life.
- If the lower classes do not give us a good example, what are they doing there.
- The questions are never indiscreet. Sometimes the answers are.
- Insignificant women are always jealous of their husbands, the beautiful are never. They are always so busy being jealous of each other's husbands.
- The only difference between a flirtation and eternal love is that a flirtation lasts longer.
- The egoist is not what lives as he likes and likes, but what asks others to live as he likes and likes; the altruist is the one who lets others live as they like ...
- There are no moral or immoral books. There are well written or poorly written books.
- The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their life an imitation, their passions a quote.
- The bad thing is not that you get older outside, it's that many don't stay young inside.
- I often have long conversations with myself and I am so intelligent that sometimes I don't understand a word of what I say.
- Every woman becomes like her mother. This is his tragedy. No man becomes like his mother. This is his tragedy.
- The public is very tolerant. Forgive everything except genius.
- The world was made by fools so that the wise live there.
- Women are made to be loved, not to be understood.
- Discontent is the first step towards progress.
- The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist knows it's true.
- The Book of Books begins with a man and a woman in paradise, and ends with the Apocalypse.
- A really well-made back is the only link between Art and Nature.
- The world has always laughed at its own tragedies and this is the only way it has managed to endure them. Consequently, everything the world has treated seriously belongs to the comic side of things.
Oscar Wilde's aphorisms
- I never travel without my diary. You must always have something sensational to read on the train.
- Beauty cannot be questioned: it reigns by divine right.
- If you can't enjoy reading a book over and over again, it's worth not reading it at all.
- The logical basis of marriage is mutual misunderstanding.
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Nothing that is truly useful can be taught.
- A woman is happy as long as she manages to look ten years younger than her daughter.
- Today we must have some occupation. If I didn't have my debts, I would have nothing to think about.
- If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you.
- Those who have a lot are often greedy; those who have little always put that little in common.
- Men get married because they are tired. Women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
- Women, according to some, love with their ears, just like men they love with their eyes; though they still love.
- Work is the refuge of those who have nothing better to do.
- Women have become so deeply educated ... that nothing should surprise us today, except for happy marriages.
- Everything in the world is sex, except sex. Sex is power.
- London abounds too much with mists and serious people. Whether it is the mists that produce the serious people or if it is the serious people that produces the mists I cannot say.
- I am no longer young enough to know everything.
- The state must do useful things, the individual must do beautiful things.
- The only way to behave with a woman is to make love to her if she is beautiful and to another if she is ugly.
- Women represent the triumph of matter over spirit; men represent the triumph of the intellect over morals.
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give in to it.
- Imagination is a quality that has been granted to man to compensate him for what he is not, while a sense of humor has been given to him to console him for what he is.
- Ambition is the last refuge of the bankrupt.
- Experience is something that you cannot have for free.
- A happy marriage usually takes more than two people.
- Women are never disarmed by compliments, men are always disarmed: this is the difference between the two sexes.
- Bachelors should be taxed heavier than married men. It is not fair that some men are happier than others.
- If nature had been comfortable, humanity would never have invented architecture.
- The books that men call immoral are simply books that show the world his shame.
- Superficial pains, like superficial loves, live long. The truly great loves and pains are destroyed by their fullness.
- The only thing worth doing today is being modern.
- If you say something that doesn't offend anyone, you didn't say anything.
- Society often forgives the offender, never forgives the dreamer.
- Love is not blind, it is presbyopic: proof of this is that it begins to perceive defects as it moves away.
- Spontaneity is a very difficult pose to hold.
- Friendship is more tragic than love because it lasts longer.
- Is sad. Half the world doesn't believe in God, and the other half doesn't believe in me.
- Whenever you love, it's the only time you've ever loved. The difference of the object does not alter the uniqueness of the passion: it simply intensifies it.
- There is never a second chance to make a good impression the first time.
- I like people more than princes, and people without principles I like more than anything else in the world.
- Loveless marriages are horrible. But there is something worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. It is the marriage in which there is love, faithfulness, devotion, but only on one side: one of the two hearts will surely break.
- Every man lies, but give him a mask and he will be sincere.
- Madnesses are the only things you never regret.
- Either you are a work of art or you are wearing it.
- The man who sees both sides of a matter is a man who sees absolutely nothing.
- Nothing is as dangerous as being too modern. You risk becoming suddenly out of fashion.
- Immature poets imitate; the mature steal.
- Life is nothing but a bad quarter of an hour, made up of exquisite moments.
- In ancient times books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by anyone.
- After a good dinner you can forgive anyone, even your relatives.
- They promised us that dreams can come true, but they forgot to tell us that nightmares are dreams too.
- An idea that is not dangerous does not deserve to be called an idea at all.
- A man can be happy with any woman, as long as you don't really love her.
- Experience has no ethical value: it is simply the name that men give to their mistakes.
- I prefer Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
- A mask tells us more than a face.
- Every great man today has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes his biography.
- Children start by loving their parents, then they judge them. They rarely, if ever, forgive them.
- The poet can endure everything except a printing error.
- We often confuse duty with what others do and not what we ourselves must do.
- There is much talk about the beauty that is in certainty; it seems that the subtlest beauty that is in doubt is ignored. Believing is very monotonous, the doubt is deeply exciting. Stay alert, that's life; to be cradled in tranquility, here is death.
- I'm sure if I lived in the country for six months I would become such a simple guy, that nobody would notice me anymore.
- When man acts he is a puppet. When he describes he is a poet. The whole secret lies in this.
Oscar Wilde phrases
- Women have nothing to say, but they say it so well!
- When I like a person very much, I never tell anyone's name: it's like giving up part of them. I learned to love the secret: it seems to me the only thing that can make modern life mysterious - or splendid -.
- A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her fantasy work.
- Praise makes me humble, but when they insult me I know I have touched the stars.
- The value of an idea has nothing to do with the sincerity of the exhibitor. It is much more likely that the less sincere you are, the more intellectually clear the idea will be, because it will not be infected by your needs, desires or prejudices.
- The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. Which is the second, no one has found out yet.
- Everyone has spirit today. Wherever you go, you can't help but meet intelligent people. It has become a real plague.
- Love, beauty, style ... I have very simple tastes. I like the best of everything.
- There is only one horrible thing in the world, only one unforgivable sin: boredom.
- A friend is someone who knows you very well and, despite this, continues to hang out with you.
- When people tell us about others they are usually monotonous. But when they talk to us about themselves they are almost always interesting, and if you could silence them when they become boring as easily as you can close a book that has bored us, they would be absolutely perfect.
- There is always something ridiculous in the feelings of those who no longer love each other.
- Sin is the only color note that exists in modern life.
- Sometimes I think that God, in creating man, slightly overestimated his abilities.
- Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to explain the curious attractiveness of others.
- Anyone can sympathize with the pain of a friend, but only a noble soul can sympathize with the success of a friend.
- Nothing is more necessary than superfluous.
- I have often observed that in the homes of married people, champagne is rarely of the highest quality.
- Anyone can be reasonable, but being sane is rare.
- Duty ... is the driest of all ties between men.
- It is absurd to divide people into good or bad. People are either charming or boring.
- Laughter is by no means a bad start to a friendship and is by far the best way to end it.
- It is confession and not the priest who gives us absolution.
- We women do better than men: we are forbidden more things than they are.
- The secret to staying young lies in having a wild passion for pleasure.
- Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the original sin of the world. If the caveman had been able to laugh, history would have followed another course.
- There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life: the fact that the past is always the lover and the future invariably the husband.
- Old people believe everything, middle-aged people suspect everything, young people know everything.
- Always! What a terrible word. It makes me shiver when I hear it. Women love to pronounce it. They ruin any love story by trying to make it last forever.
- I can't help detesting my parents. I suppose this stems from the fact that nobody can bear that others have our own flaws.
- Only superficial people do not judge by appearances. The real mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- There are many things that we would gladly throw away if we weren't afraid that someone else would pick them up.
- Do not love those who treat you as if you were ordinary.
- A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. He would be terribly selfish if he wanted the flowers in the garden to be all red and all rose.
- The public has an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except those that deserve to be known.
- The man of action is the only person who has more illusions than the dreamer.
- The quote is a useful substitute for intelligence.
- Madness is the most beautiful brain orgasm there is.
- Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always seem to be wrong.
- A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
- When you are in love, you start by deceiving yourself. And you end up deceiving others. This is what the world calls a love story.
- The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married.
- You should always be in love. That's why you should never get married.
- Man has enough memory to remember hundreds of anecdotes, but he does not have enough memory to remember those who have already told them.
- Life makes us pay too high a price for its goods, and sells us the vilest of its sordid loan shark secrets.
- Loyalty is for sentimental life what coherence is for intellectual life: simply an admission of failure.
- The big advantage of playing with fire is that you never get burned. It is only those who cannot play it that burn themselves completely.
- It is better to enjoy a rose than to examine its root under a microscope.
- Consistency is the last refuge of unimaginative people.
- Prayers must never be answered: if it happens, they cease to be prayers and become correspondence.
- It is only on things that do not interest you that you can give an opinion without preconceptions, which is undoubtedly the reason why an opinion without preconceptions is always absolutely worthless.
- A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, a woman who moralizes is inevitably ugly.
- What we didn't dare, we certainly lost.
- Only the obtuse are brilliant in the morning at breakfast.
- Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we are forced to change it every six months.
- To get my youth back I would do anything in the world, except exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
- Indifference is the revenge that the world takes on the mediocre.
- A pessimist is someone who complains about the noise when the opportunity knocks on the door.
- Women's strength comes from something that psychology cannot explain. Men can be analyzed, women ... only adored.
- All people know the price of things but only a few know their true value.
- Youth smiles without reason. It is one of his greatest graces.
- Women inspire us the desire to create masterpieces and always prevent us from making them.
- The difference between literature and journalism lies in the fact that journalism is illegible and that literature is not read.
- The great events of the world take place in the brain.
