Oscar Wilde is one of the wittiest writers of any era — his plays and other writings have stuck with us through the years and many of his famous quotes have been attributed and re-attributed to others. Wilde quotes are great for teachers of the arts and especially theater — students of the arts should likewise familiarize themselves with Wilde’s humorous and insightful sayings.
Here’s a short list of some of Oscar Wilde’s most memorable quotes.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
Only the shallow know themselves.
Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
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.
I have nothing to declare except my genuis.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
A true friend stabs you in the front.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
All art is quite useless.
One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.