He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
Oscar Wilde
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
Oscar Wilde
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
Oscar Wilde
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde
I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde
I can resist everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Oscar Wilde
There is no sin except stupidity.
Oscar Wilde
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Oscar Wilde
There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.
Oscar Wilde
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
Oscar Wilde
There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.
Oscar Wilde
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
Oscar Wilde
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Oscar Wilde
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
Oscar Wilde
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Oscar Wilde
To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
Oscar Wilde
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Oscar Wilde
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde
Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.
Oscar Wilde
Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.
Oscar Wilde
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Oscar Wilde
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
Oscar Wilde
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.
Oscar Wilde
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde
Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
Oscar Wilde
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.
Oscar Wilde
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
Oscar Wilde
I like talking to a brick wall, it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me.
Oscar Wilde
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Oscar Wilde
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
Oscar Wilde
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Oscar Wilde
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
Oscar Wilde
Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Oscar Wilde
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
Oscar Wilde
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Oscar Wilde
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Oscar Wilde
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Oscar Wilde
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
Oscar Wilde
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Oscar Wilde
I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
Oscar Wilde
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
Oscar Wilde
If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.
Oscar Wilde
