Oscar Wilde

"In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever."

"People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous."

"There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yield and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all."

"There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People."

"The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. All the results of the mistakes of governments are quite admirable."

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

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

"For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment."

"It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes. Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle? And when these four are joined together they make a terrible force, and constitute the new authority."

"In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke? - called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism."

"In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately, in America journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt, people are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. but it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated. In England, journalism, except in a few well-known instances, not having been carried to such excesses of brutality, is still a great factor, a remarkable power. The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people's private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary."

"Here we allow absolute freedom to the journalist and entirely limit the artist. English public opinion, that is to say, tries to constrain and impede and warp the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and compels the journalist to retail things that are ugly, or disgusting, or revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the world and the most indecent newspapers."

"The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands"

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

"Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They're the only things we can pay."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."

"I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly."

"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all."

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

"My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's."

"Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

"A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic?]"

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. [First used by Wilde in Vera; or, The Nihilists.]"

"I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not."

"What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us."

"The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life."

"Mrs. Allonby: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris. Lady Hunstanton: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to? Lord Illingworth: Oh, they go to America."

"The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years."

"The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."

"Kelvil: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons? Lord Illingworth: A much better institution of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body."

"Lord Illingworth: The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. Mrs. Allonby: It ends with Revelations."

"Lady Hunstanton: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers? Lord Illingworth: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs."