Every one, even the richest and most munificent of men, pays much by cheque more light-heartedly than he pays little in specie.
But to die of laughter--this, too, seems to me a great euthanasia.
Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.
As a teacher, as a propagandist, Mr. Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.
The critic who justly admires all kinds of things simultaneously cannot love any one of them.
A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.
The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.
What a lurid life Oscar Wilde does lead - so full of extraordinary incidents. What a chance for the memoir writers of the next century
Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness.
It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
She was one of those people who said I don't know anything about music, but I know what I like.
The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.
For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like.
Not that I had any special reason for hating school. Strange as it may seem to my readers, I was not unpopular there. I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.
Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision.
It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter.
Every kind of writing is hypocritical.
Men of genius are not quick judges of character.
The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.
It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: