Oscar Wilde Quotes - Page 28

• One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Happiness, Success

  Oscar Wilde (2011). “Epigrams and Aphorisms”, p.67, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Mistake, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 4 (1891). A similar quotation occurs inWilde's play LadyWindermere's Fan, act 3 (1892).

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• Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

  Oscar Wilde

  Life, Art, Expression

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.164, GENERAL PRESS

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• Anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination.

  Oscar Wilde

  Common Sense, Imagination, Common

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.32, Wordsworth Editions

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• Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Resemblance Is, Perfection

  Oscar Wilde (2004). “The Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and Writings”, p.313, Penguin

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• He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Wanted, Knows

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.158, Prestwick House Inc

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• Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it comes into existence.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Doe, Different

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.753, GENERAL PRESS

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• Memory is the diary that chronicles things that never have happened and couldn't possibly have happened.

  Oscar Wilde

  Memories, Diaries, Chronicles

  "Epigrams & Aphorisms".

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• Christ did not die to save people, but to teach people how to save each other. This is, I have no doubt, a grave heresy, but it is also a fact.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Doubt, Facts

  Oscar Wilde (1962). “Letters”

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• every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Feelings, Portraits

  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.7, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn't read.

  Oscar Wilde

  Culture, Half, Importance Of Being Earnest

  Oscar Wilde (1980). “Poems”

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• Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.

  Oscar Wilde

  Purpose, Literature, Mould

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• Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Mistake, Humor

  1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch.19.

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• The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

  Oscar Wilde

  Positive, Funny Inspirational, Attitude

  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.52, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Intelligent, Play, Intelligence

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.815, GENERAL PRESS

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• Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see life as a whole, by which and by which alone we can understand others in their real and their ideal relation. Only what is fine, and finely conceived can feed love. But anything will feed hate.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Wedding, Hate

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “De Profundis”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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• Men know life too early. Women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Differences, Too Late

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Aphorisms”, p.4, Oscar Wilde

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• Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.

  Oscar Wilde

  Motivational, Stupid, Mean

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.691, GENERAL PRESS

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• I live in terror of not being misunderstood.

  Oscar Wilde

  Personality, Misunderstood, Being Misunderstood

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.971, Wordsworth Editions

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• I must remember that a good friend is a new world.

  Oscar Wilde

  Good Friend, World, Remember

  Oscar Wilde (1962). “The letters of Oscar Wilde”

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• Dammit Sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't always be living for pleasure!

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Marriage, Married

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• I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much

  Oscar Wilde

  Depressing, Ends, Prisms

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• Consistency is the last refuge of the unimagininative.

  Oscar Wilde

  Imagination Creativity, Consistency, Oscars

  Quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit (1946)

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• No crime is vulgar,
  but all vulgarity is crime.

  Oscar Wilde

  Vulgarity Is, Crime, Vulgar

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.114, Courier Corporation

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• The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died.

  Oscar Wilde

  Girl, Gray, Died

  Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.763, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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