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.


Oscar Wilde

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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