Quotes from Oscar Wilde

There is something very morbid about modern sympathy with pain.

He has a simple and a beautiful nature...Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him.

You have a dreamer's look; you must not dream. It is only sick people who dream.

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community

Love is a more wonderful thing than art.' 'They are both simply forms of imitation,' remarked Lord Henry.

He did not wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.

Yet ruled he not long, so great had been his suffering, and so bitter the fire of his testing, for after the space of three years he died. And he who came after him ruled evilly.

To know the vintage and quality of a wine one need not drink the whole cask. It must be perfectly easy in half an hour to say whether a book is worth anything or worth nothing. Ten minutes are really sufficient, if one has the instinct for form. Who wants to wade through a dull volume? One tastes it, and that is quite enough — more than enough, I should imagine.

He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.