Continued Insights from Oscar Wilde

"There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up"

"Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable"

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative"

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written"

"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies"

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us"

"I can resist everything except temptation"

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth"

"Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there"

"Everything popular is wrong"

"Biography lends to death a new terror"

"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit"

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train"

"I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy"

"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all"

"Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you"

"It is always the unreadable that occurs"

"The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates"

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling"

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament"

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it"

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint"

"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction"

"A man who does not think for himself does not think at all"

"A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies"

"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her"

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal"

"All art is quite useless"

"Alas, I am dying beyond my means"

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world"

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means"

"Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement"

"Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities"

"Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more"

"Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both"

"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected"

"There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about"

"The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world"

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

"The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties"

"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything"

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious"

"Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance"

"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection"

"It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes"

"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art"

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating"

"Only the shallow know themselves"

"No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly"

"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess"

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Inspiring Quotes by Oscar Wilde - Page 2