Step into the world of wit, wisdom, and unparalleled humor with Oscar Wilde! Known for his sharp tongue and brilliant mind, Wilde’s quotes have the power to make you laugh, think, and see the world in a whole new light. From profound insights on life and love to his famously clever one-liners, these 69 Oscar Wilde quotes are sure to inspire and entertain you.
Get ready to venture into the mind of one of literature’s most fascinating figures and discover quotes that will resonate long after you’ve read them.
1. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation.”
2. “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
3. “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”
4. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
5. “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
6. “Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”
7. “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.”
8. “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
9. “The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.”
10. “Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”
11. “The only good thing to do with good advice is to pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.”
12. “Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.”
13. “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
14. “Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.”
15. “Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.”
16. “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
17. “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
18. “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
19. “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
20. “There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”
21. “The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.”
22. “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
23. “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.”
24. “Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.”
25. “The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
26. “I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
27. “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
28. “Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”
29. “The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”
30. “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
31. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
32. “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
33. “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
34. “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
35. “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
36. “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
37. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
38. “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
39. “A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
40. “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”
41. “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
42. “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
43. “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
44. “I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
45. “I am not young enough to know everything.”
46. “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
47. “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”
48. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
49. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
50. “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
51. “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
52. “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
53. “I like talking to a brick wall- it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!”
54. “Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.”
55. “Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
56. “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
57. “I beg your pardon I didn’t recognise you – I’ve changed a lot.”
58. “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
59. “How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”
60. “Whenever life sucks, remember you’re going to die someday.”
61. “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”
62. “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
63. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.”
64. “It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
65. “Nothing worth knowing can be taught.”
66. “With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
67. “It is perfectly monstrous, the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.”
68. “The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving.”
69. “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.”
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