All Quotes

"Lord Illingworth: Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation."

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

"Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed."

"I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living."

"Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess."

"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

"Don't be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them."

"Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

"The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value."

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."

"The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play."

"In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody."

"Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer."

"Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious."

"To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes."

"Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal."

"The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy."

"Those whom the gods love grow young."

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

"Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions."

"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out."

"Patriotism is the vice of nations."

"Only the shallow know themselves."

"In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer."

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

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."

"One should always be a little improbable."

"Time is a waste of money."

"The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated."

"Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"

"I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

"Divorces are made in Heaven."

"The number of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public."

"I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief"

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone."

"My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl."

"The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain."

"Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner."

"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune ... to lose both seems like carelessness."

"An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be."

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

"Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple. Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"

"I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose."

"In married life, three is company, and two is none."

"Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

"It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."

"I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing."

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."

"Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills."

"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us."