Oscar Wilde's Best Quotes

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I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Oscar Wilde
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It is the stupid and the ugly who have the best of it in this world
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm always satisfied with the best.
Oscar Wilde
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I called an insurance company to get a quote. They gave me one of Oscar Wilde’s best.
Jarod Kintz ($3.33 (the title is the price))
The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
Oscar Wilde
To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!
Oscar Wilde (A Woman of No Importance)
I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five
Oscar Wilde
I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane. It never is, sir. Lane, you're a perfect pessimist. I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
Reading the very best writers—let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy—is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight.
Harold Bloom (The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages)
Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
Oscar Wilde
I want to paint the rest of my days with the best colors.
Debasish Mridha
Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.
Oscar Wilde (Vera Or The Nihilists)
There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so.
Oscar Wilde (The Soul of Man Under Socialism)
What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I borrowed a quote from Oscar Wilde and put it at the top of the menu: “To get into the best society nowadays one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people—that is all.
Marco Pierre White (The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness, and the Making of a Great Chef)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
the secrets of art are best learned in secret, and that Beauty, like Wisdom, loves the lonely worshipper.
Oscar Wilde (A House of Pomegranates)
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.' 'Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?' asked the duchess after a pause. 'Especially when one has been wounded by it,' answered Lord Henry.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
For romantic young people like he is, the world always looks best at a distance; and a prison where one's allowed to order one's own dinner is not at all bad.
Oscar Wilde (Vera Or The Nihilists)
It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done.
Oscar Wilde (The Plays of Oscar Wilde)
The arts that have escaped [uniformity] best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it.
Oscar Wilde (The Soul of Man Under Socialism)
To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people-that is all.
Oscar Wilde (A Woman of No Importance)
But surely it is something to have been The best beloved for a little while, To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen His purple wings flit once across thy smile.
Oscar Wilde (Poems)
Really the answers I get are idiotic. The entire correspondence of you and Robbie with me should be published. The best title would be Letters from Two Idiots to a Lunatic, I should fancy.
Oscar Wilde (The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,” said the young lord, plucking another daisy. Hallward shook his head. “You don’t understand what friendship is, Harry,” he murmured -”or what enmity is, for that matter. You like everyone; that is to say, you are indifferent to everyone.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane. Lane.  It never is, sir. Algernon.  Lane, you’re a perfect pessimist. Lane.  I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.
Oscar Wilde
Life teaches us the best lesson which you remember for the lifetime.
Bhawna Dehariya
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original 1890 Uncensored Edition + The Expanded and Revised 1891 Edition))
The contrarian dogma is simple and easy to understand: “Whatever is popular is wrong,” as Oscar Wilde proclaimed at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
Windsor Mann (The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism -- The Very Best of Christopher Hitchens)
Satire, sarcasm, and irony are always best when served with a side of truth. If Oscar Wilde were alive and on Twitter today, he’d be crucified.
Bill Madden
That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography, as it deals not with events, but with the thoughts of one's life; not with life's physical accidents of deed or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind...The best that one can say of most modern creative art is that it is just a little less vulgar than reality, and so the critic, with his fine sense of distinction and sure instinct of delicate refinement, will prefer to look into the silver mirror or through the woven veil, and will turn his eyes away from the chaos and clamor of actual existence, though the mirror be tarnished and the veil be torn. His sole aim is to chronicle his own impressions. It is for him that pictures are painted, books written, and marble hewn into form.
Oscar Wilde (The Critic As Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything (Green Integer))
Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." "Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after a pause. "Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (A Short Autobiography)
We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it.
Oscar Wilde (The Soul of Man Under Socialism)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.
Oscar Wilde (THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (illustrated, complete, and unabridged 1891 edition))
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world... They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet... Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actors and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we'd have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road as a show.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
If you wish me to never look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
In England, the arts that have escaped best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it.
Oscar Wilde (Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit quietly and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are,—my fame, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks,—we will all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray (Everyman S))
He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. "I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way—I wonder will you understand me?—his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'—who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad—for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty— his merely visible presence—ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body— how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always missed.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any question—simply curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except, of course, in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not modern.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray (Everyman S))
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
To get into the best society, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.
Oscar Wilde
A true friend stabs you in the front. Oscar Wilde
M. Prefontaine (The Funniest Quotes Book: 1001 Of The Best Humourous Quotations (Quotes For Every Occasion Book 2))
A laughter is a good way to start a friendship and the best to end one
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. 
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
With all the flowers the dead love best.
Oscar Wilde (Selected Poems)
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible. (Chapter 17)
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best.
Oscar Wilde (Poems)
Make each day, the best day of life.
Debasish Mridha
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,” said the young lord, plucking another daisy.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that Art cannot express it. There is nothing that Art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
but more often he would be alone, feeling through a certain quick instinct, which was almost a divination, that the secrets of art are best learned in secret, and that Beauty, like Wisdom, loves the lonely worshiper.
Oscar Wilde (The Happy Prince and Other Tales)
The contrarian dogma is simple and easy to understand: “Whatever is popular is wrong,” as Oscar Wilde proclaimed at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. As a conclusion, this statement is questionable. As a mindset, it’s not bad.
Windsor Mann (The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism -- The Very Best of Christopher Hitchens)
Upon these journeys of discovery, as he would call them—and, indeed, they were to him real voyages through a marvellous land, he would sometimes be accompanied by the slim, fair-haired Court pages, with their floating mantles, and gay fluttering ribands; but more often he would be alone, feeling through a certain quick instinct, which was almost a divination, that the secrets of art are best learned in secret, and that Beauty, like Wisdom, loves the lonely worshipper.
Oscar Wilde
The steam whistle will not affright him nor the flutes of Arcadia weary him: for him there is but one time, the artistic moment; but one law, the law of form; but one land, the land of Beauty - a land removed indeed from the real world and yet more sensuous because more enduring; calm, yet with that calm which dwells in the faces of the Greek statues, the calm which comes not from the rejection but from the absorption of passion, the calm which despair and sorrow cannot disturb but intensify only. And so it comes that he who seems to stand most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best, because he has stripped life of what is accidental and transitory, stripped it of that ‘mist of familiarity which makes life obscure to us.
Oscar Wilde (The English Renaissance of Art)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend upon it for their daily bread, and the highest form of literature, poetry, brings no wealth to the singer. For producing your best work also you will require some leisure and freedom from sordid care.
Oscar Wilde
Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your heads,” she kept saying to them; and every now and then she showed them how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention to her. They were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in society at all.
Oscar Wilde (Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated))
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit quietly and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others nor ever receive it from alien hands.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon other, nor ever receive it from alien hands.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
To cite a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde, “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.” It’s Us versus Them framed morally, and the importance of what Greene calls “the Tragedy of Commonsense Morality” is shown by the fact that most intergroup conflicts on our planet ultimately are cultural disagreements about whose “right” is righter.
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
We try to improve the conditions of the race by means of good air, free sunlight, wholesome water, and hideous bare buildings for the better housing of the lower orders. But these things merely produce health, they do not produce beauty. For this Art is required, and the true disciples of the great artist are not his studio-imitators, but those who become like his works of art, be they plastic as in Greek days, or pictorial as in modern times; in a word, Life is Art's best, Art's only pupil.
Oscar Wilde (Intentions)
The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Albeit nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Kinglike and no man Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honor, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent bloody fee.
Oscar Wilde
I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply, and without affectation that the two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison.  I will not say that prison is the best thing that could have happened to me: for that phrase would savour of too great bitterness towards myself.  I would sooner say, or hear it said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age, that in my perversity, and for that perversity’s sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.
Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)
There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit quietly and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are, my fame, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks; we will all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray)
We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian. "Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the Duchess, with mock sadness. "My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." "Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the Duchess, after a pause. "Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way--I wonder will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'--who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad--for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty--his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body--how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are — my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks — we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The 1890s were apprentice years for Yeats. Though he played with Indian and Irish mythology, his symbolism really developed later. The decade was for him, as a poet, the years of lyric, of the Rhymers’ Club, of those contemporaries whom he dubbed the ‘tragic generation’. ‘I have known twelve men who killed themselves,’ Arthur Symons looked back from his middle-aged madness, reflecting on the decade of which he was the doyen. The writers and artists of the period lived hectically and recklessly. Ernest Dowson (1867–1900) (one of the best lyricists of them all – ‘I cried for madder music and for stronger wine’) died from consumption at thirty-two; Lionel Johnson (1867–1902), a dipsomaniac, died aged thirty-five from a stroke. John Davidson committed suicide at fifty-two; Oscar Wilde, disgraced and broken by prison and exile, died at forty-six; Aubrey Beardsley died at twenty-six. This is not to mention the minor figures of the Nineties literary scene: William Theodore Peters, actor and poet, who starved to death in Paris; Hubert Crankanthorpe, who threw himself in the Thames; Henry Harland, editor of The Yellow Book, who died of consumption aged forty-three, or Francis Thompson, who fled the Hound of Heaven ‘down the nights and down the days’ and who died of the same disease aged forty-eight. Charles Conder (1868–1909), water-colourist and rococo fan-painter, died in an asylum aged forty-one.
A.N. Wilson (The Victorians)
I freely admit that the best of my fun, I owe it to Horse and Hound - Whyte Melville (1821-1878) "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" ... King Henry V 1598 (William Shakespeare) I can resist anything except temptation - Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892) In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different - Coco Chanel When it comes to pain and suffering, she's right up there with Elizabeth Taylor - Truvy (Steel Magnolias) She looks too pure to be pink (Rizzo, Grease) I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow - Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind.)
George John Whyte-Melville
Oscar Wilde said that men marry because they are bored, and women because they are curious, and that both are disappointed...He was right about the disappointment. You will be disappointed....Not just in each other, but in yourselves. It's inevitable that you'll each fall short of your own expectations...But you will also exceed those expectations, again and again, and in ways you can't possibly imagine. And my wish for you both is that there will come a time when you'll look back on this day and realize that - in spite of the disappointments - even the best of your old expectations seem pale in the face of the actual life you have lived together.
A. Manette Ansay
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. -Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dominika Best (The Haunting of Sunshine House (Ghosts of Los Angeles #1))
Oscar Wilde said, “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best,” he thought.
James Patterson (Tick Tock (Michael Bennett, #4))
Willoughby: My Darling Anne, There's a longer letter in the dresser drawer I've been writing for the last week or so, that one covers us, and my memories of us, and how much I've always loved you. This one just covers tonight, and more importantly, today. Tonight I have gone out to the horses to end it. I cannot say sorry for the act itself, although I know for a short time you will be angry at me, or even hate me for it. Please don't. This is not a case of, I came in this world alone and I'm goin' out of it alone, or anything dumb like that. I did not come in this world alone, my mom was there. And I am not goin' out of it alone, 'cause you were there, drunk on the couch, making Oscar Wilde cock jokes. No, this is a case, in some senses, of bravery. Not the bravery of facing a bullet down. The next few months of pain would be far harder than that small flash. No, it's the bravery of weighing up the next few months of still being with you, still waking up with you, of playing with the kids... Against the next few months of seeing in your eyes how much my pain is killing you. How my weakened body, as it ebbs away, and you tend to it, are your final and lasting memories of me. I won't have that. Your final memories of me will be us at the riverside, and that dumb fishing game, which I think they cheated at. And me inside of you, and you on top of me... And barely a fleeting thought, of the darkness yet to come. That was the best Anne. A whooole day of not thinking about it. Dwell on this day baby, 'cause it was the best day of my life. Kiss the girls for me, and know that I've always loved you... And maybe I'll see ya again if there's another place, and if there ain't... Well, it's been heaven knowing you. Your Boy, Bill
Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)