Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

It is the stupid and the ugly who have the best of it in this world

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.

People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?

A kiss may ruin a human life

Each of us has heaven and hell in him...