Irish dramatist, poet, author and one of the most iconic figures from
late Victorian society. For his sexuality he suffered the indignity and shame of imprisonment.
For a long time his name was synonymous with scandal and intrigue.
However with changing social attitudes he is remembered with great affection for his biting social criticism, wit and linguistic skills.
(1854-1900)
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.
~ Oscar Wilde
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
~ Oscar Wilde
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
~ Oscar Wilde
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
~ Oscar Wilde
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
~ Oscar Wilde
An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.
~ Oscar Wilde
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
~ Oscar Wilde
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
~ Oscar Wilde
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
~ Oscar Wilde
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
~ Oscar Wilde
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
~ Oscar Wilde
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
~ Oscar Wilde
I can resist everything except temptation.
~ Oscar Wilde
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
~ Oscar Wilde
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
~ Oscar Wilde
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.
~ Oscar Wilde
Who, being loved, is poor?
~ Oscar Wilde
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
~ Oscar Wilde
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
~ Oscar Wilde
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
~ Oscar Wilde
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
~ Oscar Wilde
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
~ Oscar Wilde
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
~ Oscar Wilde
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
~ Oscar Wilde
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
~ Oscar Wilde
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
~ Oscar Wilde
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
~ Oscar Wilde
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
~ Oscar Wilde
I am not young enough to know everything.
~ Oscar Wilde
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
~ Oscar Wilde
The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.
~ Oscar Wilde
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
~ Oscar Wilde
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
~ Oscar Wilde
Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.
~ Oscar Wilde
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
~ Oscar Wilde
Though of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something.
~ Oscar Wilde
I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or
unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house--tops.
~ Oscar Wilde
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
~ Oscar Wilde
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
~ Oscar Wilde
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
~ Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
~ Oscar Wilde
Duty is what one expects from others.
~ Oscar Wilde
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
~ Oscar Wilde
His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. He began his literary career as a novelist.
Later he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage.
Shaw's main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938),
for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion, respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his
Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honors, but later accepted it.
( 1856-1950)
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
~ Mark Twain
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
~ Voltaire
There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.
~ Henry Ford
