Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Are all men bad? Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good.

Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life.

Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

I can resist anything but temptation

I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trails are often blessings in disguise.

Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

In matters of great importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.

It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.

Life at times loses its sense of reality; it appears to us like a weird, optical illusion - a phantasmagoric bubble that will disappear at the slightest breath.

Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand upon his shoulder. You are quite right to do that, he murmured. Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.