Oscar Wilde

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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

Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.

Who, being loved, is poor?

We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, that fire can purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all.

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

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

I am not young enough to know everything.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

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

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

Celibacy is the most unusual of all the perversions.

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

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

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.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

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.

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

Women are made to be loved, not understood.

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

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

There is no sin except stupidity.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

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.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

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

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

I can resist everything except temptation.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

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

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

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

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

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

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

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

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

True friends stab you in the front.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.

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

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

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

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.

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

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

It's tragic how few people ever possess their souls before they die. Nothing is more rare in any man, than an act of his own. It is quite true. Most people are other people.

Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.