Quotes by Oscar Wilder

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

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.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray"

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
"The Remarkable Rocket"

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
(A Woman of No Importance, Act 3)

I don't play accurately-any one can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
(Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest)