Quotes by Oscar Wilder

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
(An Ideal husband, 1893)

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
(An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I)

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
(De Profundis, 1905)

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
(In Life of , H. Pearson)

One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
(L'Envoi, 1882)

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892)

I can resist anything but temptation.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I)

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I)

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I)

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
(Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III)

Only the shallow know themselves.
(Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, 1882)

Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
(The Ballad of Reading Gaol)

We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
(The Canterville Ghost, 1882)

To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.
(The Critic as Artist, 1891)

But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
(The Critic as Artist, 1891)

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
(The Critic as Artist, 1891)

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
(The Critic as Artist, 1891)