I turned halfway round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.
Oscar Wilde
Related I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if... OSCAR WILDE And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she w... SARAH DESSEN I was scared they wouldn't let me do it. So I had to wear my jacket, and I was driving like that the... GEOFF PARKER There's room for everyone, and everyone is wanted and needed. Whoopi showed me that. When I firs... ANNA DIOP Every day there was tension. I worked under terrible pressure. I was afraid that at any moment, I mi... MOHAMED SIFAOUI When I died my hair red the first time, I felt as if it was what nature intended. I have been accuse... AMY ADAMS You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was l... PENELOPE DOUGLAS I looked into her eyes, and saw my own staring back, the same peculiar shade, pale grey, flecked wit... CELIA REES You moved my head so that it was lying in your lap. "Keep your eyes open," you said. "Stay wit... LUCY CHRISTOPHER I closed my eyes and turned my face into the cold wind. When I felt it swept along my skin there was... NINA HRUSA I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he ha... CHRIS ISAAK I never knew that I would love someone so much, When I saw my daughter for the first time . That's r... VANESSA MOJICA I was terrified the first time that I had a big problem in my business. I was obviously terrified wh... DIANE VON FURSTENBERG For the first time in my life I tried whale. It was very chewy and quite fatty. My friend had had wh... ROSE LESLIE I knew it the minute after I called it. I think I was just so loud that everyone thought it was righ... DARLETA MAYHUE Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew th... MAYA ANGELOU My whole life, when I was growing up, not one race has ever accepted me, ... So I never felt connect... JESSICA ALBA The happiest times in my life were when my relationships were going well -- when I was in love with ... BILLY JOEL When I turned 16, my dad made me sign a contract - he made us sign contracts for everything - that i... KIM KARDASHIAN The whole side of his face was so swollen, I couldn't miss it (whether) I was throwing a jab or a ri... SHANE MOSLEY It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the caus... JEAN GENET When it was over I felt he could have come to me. When I saw film, he had pressure in his face. He h... JUSTIN PEELLE My whole family came out to watch me after being with him last night and told me to win it for him. ... KATIE DALY It was like a dream. It is a dream that came true. I lived the emotions. I closed my eyes twice to r... CRISTIAN ZORZI I had this fantasy that in a democracy the government was the population. So I came to America and g... MARJANE SATRAPI It felt good to finally get a touchdown. When I caught it, I saw the linebacker go to my outside, so... DARREN SPROLES This time around I was so lonely that I was forced to be face to face with myself. Realizing at the ... KANDI DOUGHERTY The applause was so loud and insistent that I had to respond with several encores. I was numb with h... LENI RIEFENSTAHL I felt like it was my time to go, even though I was extremely upset that I had lost this opportunity... JULIE LELAND There's only one thing I know for certain anymore." He turned, his eyes a clear black. "That I would... BECCA FITZPATRICK That whole environment was just incompatible with my beliefs and my personality. It was a dark time ... ZHANG ZIYI I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my fac... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I'm a self-confessed geek, and my whole concept of music at first was entirely electronic. In ma... ERIC WHITACRE One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — ... EDGAR ALLAN POE And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes search... LISA KLEYPAS But mostly, I was crying because I was suddenly very aware of the fact that it was me standing up in... STEPHEN CHBOSKY When I was working on Eye of the Beholder, I played a character who is so aloof that my whole lifest... ASHLEY JUDD When I first came to Hollywood I was told to go out with an agent because it was good for my career.... SALMA HAYEK But I know just what it feels like to have a voice in the back of my head, like a face that I hold i... LINKIN PARK My parents always knew that I wanted to act, so it didn't really come as a big surprise. The onl... RUMER WILLIS I though I made it clear that harming you isn't high on my list of priorities." He shifts her in his... NENIA CAMPBELL When the time came to begin I was so completely terrified that my legs turned numb MINNIE DRIVER When I was a teenager, I had pimples - oh, God, every time someone looked at my face I thought they ... GISELE BUNDCHEN When I was 6, I saw a commercial that Jessica Simpson was in, and that was the first time I felt my ... RYAN LEE When I was 6, I saw a commercial that Jessica Simpson was in, and that was the first time I felt my ... LEE RYAN When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with o... ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPéRY It was very gray, very dreary. Everything was still rationed when I first saw the United States in 1... JOHN MAHONEY It occurred to me that my cheek was probably right over his tattoo. Without thinking, I lifted my fa... RACHEL HAWKINS I don't sing now, because I had polio when I was 15, bulbar polio. This was when the epidemic wa... CHARLIE HADEN I've played with and against (Anderson) almost my whole life in club. When I saw which way his plant... JEFF ATTINELLA Scott came into the dressing room while I was getting dressed, ... I was bending over to pull my pan... JOHN BARROWMAN I know when I was growing up in New York, whenever I turned on the television, I never saw a face th... YUNJIN KIM I knew Jim and ESPN were talking, but I always felt that deep in my soul, he was a CBS guy, the face... LES MOONVES I turned my face up to his. I could hardly look at him the same way. I was crying without realizing ... BECCA FITZPATRICK I was raised a Southern Baptist, and my whole family were Christians. However, my Dad was really int... CRAIG BREWER I was a little aggressive. My New Jersey rudeness came out a little. I just had the worst cotton-mou... CHRIS KENNY I was so tired. I just wanted to curl up with someone, anyone, even him, and sleep until work on Mon... ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN Seven times have I despised my soul: The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and kn... KAHLIL GIBRAN How thin the air felt at the forest's edge, how ghostly the trees that guarded their realm.... The w... MARTINE LEAVITT When I came here, it was the first time that I had left my family. I was so homesick and I had the k... MARTIN BARTOS After I made that first move or first couple of moves, I saw I had a cut-back lane and there was a l... TERRY CAULLEY I hated my face, for example, found it odious, and even suspected that there was some mean expressio... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY Beneath me, the bed tipped as Cole edged closer. I felt him lean over me. His breath, warm and measu... MAGGIE STIEFVATER Superstar was made so early in my career I had nothing to do with it at all. The first time I saw it... ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER When my sister and I came along, my father's political life was completely over. He ran for pres... ANNE COX CHAMBERS Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with... D.T. SUZUKI Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my... FERNANDO PESSOA I think someone gave me candy when I was younger, someone whose face I don't remember; a blank face ... KIMBER NILSSON It is clear I was never the Pretty Girl. I had my two front teeth knocked out when I was 10 and didn... ELLEN BARKIN O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation . Say it so tha... AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO The biggest thing for me was getting to a point where my wife and I together felt that it was time, ... MIKE SINGLETARY My brother Trevor is theatrically trained. I used to watch him when I was younger and I was in love ... CHLOE GRACE MORETZ I met the team in Minnesota. I pinch-hit against Eddie Guardado and struck out. We came back home an... MARK LORETTA I saw women's boxing on television for the first time when I was 18, and that's when I wante... LAILA ALI Cate had told me once, a long time ago, that the only way to survive your past was to find a way to ... ALEXANDRA BRACKEN There's a lot of parts in her I would like to instill in him. When I saw him, I knew that my whole w... JEREMY FOUREZ She raised her head when she heard my step, and her gaze met my own, over the matron's dipping shoul... SARAH WATERS Laura Bush has the face of my mother when my mother was young. The face, the body, the voice. The fi... ORIANA FALLACI It was post war. It was very gray, very dreary. Everything was still rationed when I first saw the U... JOHN MAHONEY I would do as I was told, but I had a growing resentment about what was happening. It damaged my rel... GRAHAM COXON When I was growing up, my mother was always a friend to my siblings and me (in addition to being all... MARLO THOMAS The actual game, once we got out there, that was 10 times better than I could have ever imagined. I ... DAVIS DREWISKE I realized the universe had consumed my whole entity with its divine sensation of eternal bliss. All... ABHIJIT NASKAR Cole,” I said, “do you think I’m lovable?” “As in ‘cuddly and’?” “As in ... MAGGIE STIEFVATER When I had my first experiences of choral singing, the dissonance of those close harmonies was so ex... ERIC WHITACRE ...So to be fast to don't be long and to try to be short... If you want to play the best game, creat... DEYTH BANGER I was always a visual artist my whole life, and I came to music really late - when I was 21 or 22 wa... TYCHO My parents called me the WB frog. Because when I was onstage, I would do this whole song and dance, ... BRIE LARSON Growing up, nobody I knew even knew a writer. So it was a big adventure and something that I've ... CANDACE BUSHNELL My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember h... JOHN LLOYD YOUNG I felt pretty relaxed and pretty focused at the same time. The first round I got off to a slow start... ALEX TSIRTSIS It was something I wanted to do right away. I was so thrilled to be on the team. I knew I had a good... ANDREW KUECHLER I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remem... BERNARD CORNWELL I was trying not to get my head down because it was three minutes in and I knew we had time to come ... LINDSAY THOMPSON I was pretty nervous when I met Robert DeNiro. I kind of felt like a kid in a candy store for the fi... YVONNE STRAHOVSKI I knew, you would do me good, in some way, at some time;- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld ... CHARLOTTE BRONTë I was very, very little - it was the first time I ever cooked on my own, with my mother's superv... GAIL SIMMONS As a kid, we had one television channel and a sad little roller rink. And there was not much else to... DARBY STANCHFIELD I am very thankful that I have lived the life I have lived. I am thankful for my Graves' disease... GAIL DEVERS When I was born, if someone would have told me all the experiences that I would face throughout my l... LEROY NELLIS II
More Oscar Wilde
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry,... OSCAR WILDE It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. OSCAR WILDE The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. OSCAR WILDE We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. OSCAR WILDE I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. OSCAR WILDE Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. OSCAR WILDE The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation. OSCAR WILDE A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her. OSCAR WILDE True friends stab you in the front. OSCAR WILDE Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities. OSCAR WILDE It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. OSCAR WILDE Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. OSCAR WILDE It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly. OSCAR WILDE The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself. OSCAR WILDE Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing. OSCAR WILDE Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. OSCAR WILDE I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give... OSCAR WILDE In its primary aspect, a painting has no more spiritual message than an exquisite fragment of Veneti... OSCAR WILDE Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals. OSCAR WILDE Writing bores me so. OSCAR WILDE There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies. OSCAR WILDE Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty. OSCAR WILDE Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to ... OSCAR WILDE 'The Lady's World' should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's... OSCAR WILDE There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose. OSCAR WILDE In married life three is company and two none. OSCAR WILDE I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of sim... OSCAR WILDE Charity creates a multitude of sins. OSCAR WILDE What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying. OSCAR WILDE If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world. OSCAR WILDE Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. OSCAR WILDE The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is ... OSCAR WILDE No man is rich enough to buy back his past. OSCAR WILDE There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. OSCAR WILDE Everything popular is wrong. OSCAR WILDE To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. OSCAR WILDE Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is ... OSCAR WILDE The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thin... OSCAR WILDE We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows th... OSCAR WILDE The man who says he has exhausted life generally means that life has exhausted him. OSCAR WILDE Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by... OSCAR WILDE Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d'heure made up of exquisite moments. OSCAR WILDE Yet each man kills the thing he loves from all let this be heard some does it with a bitter look som... OSCAR WILDE When a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her. OSCAR WILDE There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows... OSCAR WILDE One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually u... OSCAR WILDE The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means. OSCAR WILDE This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again. OSCAR WILDE From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point... OSCAR WILDE His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except ... OSCAR WILDE An educated person's ideas of Art are drwan naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work o... OSCAR WILDE Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succ... OSCAR WILDE I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics. OSCAR WILDE He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays. OSCAR WILDE Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father... OSCAR WILDE People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their... OSCAR WILDE What a fuss people make about fidelity! Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It... OSCAR WILDE They are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not. OSCAR WILDE The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes. OSCAR WILDE When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again it... OSCAR WILDE Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make her somethi... OSCAR WILDE They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. OSCAR WILDE On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American... OSCAR WILDE Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed. OSCAR WILDE Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, ... OSCAR WILDE London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thorou... OSCAR WILDE Once can survive everything nowadays, except death. OSCAR WILDE For he who lives more lives than one: More deaths than one must die. OSCAR WILDE I am dying beyond my means. OSCAR WILDE To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intel... OSCAR WILDE The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. OSCAR WILDE I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. OSCAR WILDE I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there... OSCAR WILDE That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London socie... OSCAR WILDE MRS. ALLONBY: She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It w... OSCAR WILDE There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they... OSCAR WILDE Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art. OSCAR WILDE Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your... OSCAR WILDE Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends up blocking his retreat. OSCAR WILDE They keep saying the right person will come along, I think mine got hit by a truck. OSCAR WILDE I like men who have a future and women who have a past OSCAR WILDE There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating --people who know absolutely everythin... OSCAR WILDE Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, t... OSCAR WILDE If one tells the truth, one is sure sooner or later to be found out OSCAR WILDE If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never... OSCAR WILDE Punctuality is the thief of time. OSCAR WILDE If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation. OSCAR WILDE ...music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the ... OSCAR WILDE Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, an... OSCAR WILDE Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very m... OSCAR WILDE None of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. OSCAR WILDE Experience is the name we give to our mistakes. OSCAR WILDE A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people's toes. OSCAR WILDE The basis for optimism is sheer terror. OSCAR WILDE A pessimist is an optimist with experience OSCAR WILDE Good taste is the excuse I've always given for leading such a bad life. OSCAR WILDE The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. -Oscar Wilde. OSCAR WILDE Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexe... OSCAR WILDE What is mind but motion in the intellectual sphere? OSCAR WILDE The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so... OSCAR WILDE The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should g... OSCAR WILDE Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our ... OSCAR WILDE Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance. OSCAR WILDE The mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-?-brac shop, all... OSCAR WILDE Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets. OSCAR WILDE It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everythi... OSCAR WILDE I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. OSCAR WILDE In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby ... OSCAR WILDE He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone. OSCAR WILDE In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. OSCAR WILDE As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked on a... OSCAR WILDE The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, w... OSCAR WILDE Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes. OSCAR WILDE I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is si... OSCAR WILDE To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies OSCAR WILDE I drink to separate my body from my soul. OSCAR WILDE He rides in the row at ten o clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his... OSCAR WILDE Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is w... OSCAR WILDE As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have it's fascination. When it is looked upon a... OSCAR WILDE Those whom the gods love grow young. OSCAR WILDE In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefi... OSCAR WILDE Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's lum... OSCAR WILDE Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself. OSCAR WILDE There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and he... OSCAR WILDE The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, wo... OSCAR WILDE Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat. OSCAR WILDE Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are re... OSCAR WILDE To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be r... OSCAR WILDE Nothing succeeds like success. OSCAR WILDE When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy. OSCAR WILDE An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. OSCAR WILDE Work is the curse of the drinking class. OSCAR WILDE Work is a refuge of people who have nothing better to do. OSCAR WILDE If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. OSCAR WILDE Time is waste of money. OSCAR WILDE Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any othe... OSCAR WILDE A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one'... OSCAR WILDE All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imi... OSCAR WILDE In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other. OSCAR WILDE Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite... OSCAR WILDE No great artist ever sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist. OSCAR WILDE Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice... OSCAR WILDE Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all. OSCAR WILDE All art is quite useless. OSCAR WILDE It is a dangerous thing to reform anyone. OSCAR WILDE The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. OSCAR WILDE There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. ... OSCAR WILDE When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old,... OSCAR WILDE There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the... OSCAR WILDE The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, educ... OSCAR WILDE Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite en... OSCAR WILDE In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the hom... OSCAR WILDE The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach. OSCAR WILDE I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated serious... OSCAR WILDE Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes t... OSCAR WILDE Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others. OSCAR WILDE As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really d... OSCAR WILDE Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so oc... OSCAR WILDE Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you wi... OSCAR WILDE The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years. OSCAR WILDE There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America. OSCAR WILDE LORD GORING: I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some good advice. MRS. CHEVELEY... OSCAR WILDE LORD GORING: My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don't see why I shouldn't give you ... OSCAR WILDE A poet can survive anything but a misprint. OSCAR WILDE The best way to make children good is to make them happy. OSCAR WILDE Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgi... OSCAR WILDE Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect fo... OSCAR WILDE Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic. OSCAR WILDE As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. OSCAR WILDE People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about s... OSCAR WILDE The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is... OSCAR WILDE As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utteranc... OSCAR WILDE The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generatio... OSCAR WILDE That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating t... OSCAR WILDE Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beau... OSCAR WILDE I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across ... Please do not shoot t... OSCAR WILDE I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments. OSCAR WILDE Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your... OSCAR WILDE Hatred is blind, as well as love. OSCAR WILDE Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go OSCAR WILDE It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then mere... OSCAR WILDE Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and lit... OSCAR WILDE Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteent... OSCAR WILDE No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter enti... OSCAR WILDE The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of... OSCAR WILDE The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything, and the young know everything. OSCAR WILDE I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that... OSCAR WILDE And beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is ... OSCAR WILDE It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it OSCAR WILDE Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem ne... OSCAR WILDE Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. OSCAR WILDE Misfortunes one can endure -- they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's ow... OSCAR WILDE Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat. OSCAR WILDE To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is... OSCAR WILDE Experience is the name we give to our past mistakes OSCAR WILDE Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. OSCAR WILDE Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is... OSCAR WILDE The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of ... OSCAR WILDE And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness... OSCAR WILDE It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal. OSCAR WILDE