Quotes by Oscar Wilde

About Oscar Wilde:

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbroker's do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

Oscar Wilde

LADY BRACKNELL To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

Oscar Wilde

JACK You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax. GWENDOLEN Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.

Oscar Wilde

My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about.

Oscar Wilde

I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.

Oscar Wilde

ALGERNON. 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 es...

Oscar Wilde

To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.

Oscar Wilde

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. 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.

Oscar Wilde

I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.

Oscar Wilde

Outside the family circle, papa, I'm glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.

Oscar Wilde

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

Oscar Wilde

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity, But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

Oscar Wilde

I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.

Oscar Wilde

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

Oscar Wilde

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 r...

Oscar Wilde

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

Oscar Wilde

They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.

Oscar Wilde

You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.

Oscar Wilde

Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own...

Oscar Wilde

Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Oscar Wilde

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

Oscar Wilde

Author Bio

  • NameOscar Wilde
  • DescriptionIrish writer and poet
  • AliasesOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
  • BornOctober 16, 1854
  • DiedNovember 30, 1900
  • CountryUnited Kingdom Of Great Britain And Ireland
  • ProfessionPoet; Playwright; Short Story Writer; Journalist; Children's Writer; Novelist
  • WorksThe Importance Of Being Earnest; The Picture Of Dorian Gray