Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 24

• I treated Art as the supreme reality and life as a mere mode of fiction.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Art, Reality

  Letter to Alfred Douglas, Jan. - Mar. 1897

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• No art ever survived censorship; no art ever will.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Censorship, Survived

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.42, Wordsworth Editions

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• The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Criticism, Critics

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.176, Wordsworth Editions

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• I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices.

  Oscar Wilde

  Principles, Prejudice, Ethics

  Oscar Wilde (1983). “Two Society Comedies”, A&C Black

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• Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcasm, Piano Music

  Impressions of America (1906). The Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate, 20 Apr. 1883, describes an afterdinner speech made by Wilde in Paris about his experiences in the United States: "The brightest and best of the many stories he related was one to the effect that at a ball in Leadville he saw a notice over the piano which read: 'Please don't shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.' "

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• Who, being loved, is poor?

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Positive, Poverty

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.583, Wordsworth Editions

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• A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

  Oscar Wilde

  Country, Land, Humanity

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.1051, Wordsworth Editions

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• I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don’t interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Scandal, Novelty

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Joseph Bristow, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The picture of Dorian Gray : the 1890 and 1891 texts”, p.128, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

  Oscar Wilde

  Answers, Sometimes, Ideal Husband

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “An Ideal Husband”, p.11, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Birthday, Friends

  1895 Lady Bracknell. The Importance of Being Earnest, act 3.

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• Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Suffering, Littles

  Oscar Wilde (2008). “The Happy Prince and Other Tales: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.12, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market place of any single thing.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Absurd, Cynic

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• Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Marriage, Wedding

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)”, p.37, Lulu Press, Inc

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• After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.

  Oscar Wilde

  Mourning, Tragedy, Sin

  1891 Intentions, 'The Critic as Artist'.

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• I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life Worth Living, Astonishing, Worth Living

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.64, Wordsworth Editions

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• 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

  Ambition, Progress, Kingdoms

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• The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.

  Oscar Wilde

  Flower, Garden, Bird

  Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel (2011). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition”, p.151, Harvard University Press

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• The one advantage of playing with fire...is
  that no one ever gets singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.

  Oscar Wilde

  Fun, Fire, Play

  Oscar Wilde, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Lady Wilde, Henry Zick (1909). “The Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde: What never dies”

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• Art persists, it timelessly continues.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Persist

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

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Oscar Wilde (1950). “Essays”, Ayer Company Pub

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• Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life...I have put only my talent into my works.

  Oscar Wilde

  Drama, Genius, Talent

  Quoted in Andre Gide, Letter to his mother, 30 Jan. 1895

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• The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Useless Things, Excuse

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.3, Wordsworth Editions

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• Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.

  Oscar Wilde

  Communication, Should, Conversation

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Critic as Artist (Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything)”, p.57, Mondial

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• Freedom, individualism and being yourself so long as you don't hurt another's physical person or property: The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Being Yourself, Art, Hurt

  19 Copy quote

• Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Art, Mean

  9 Copy quote

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