One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Nowadays 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, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire, 1912

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I

One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, part 2, 1891

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891

But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
…Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891

Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there.
Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892, Act III

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881)

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

Life is never easy for those who dream.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.