Quotations from

Oscar Wilde

About

Picture of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s. He was a key figure in the emerging Aestheticism movement of the late 19th century and is widely regarded as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era. Wilde is best known for his Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), his epigrams, plays and bedtime stories for children, as well as his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency and for practicing homosexual acts.

from Wikipedia

Quotes from Oscar Wilde

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

—Oscar Wilde

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

—Oscar Wilde

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

—Oscar Wilde

Biography lends to death a new terror.

—Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.

—Oscar Wilde

One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.

—Oscar Wilde

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

—Oscar Wilde

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

—Oscar Wilde

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

—Oscar Wilde

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

—Oscar Wilde

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

—Oscar Wilde

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

—Oscar Wilde

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

—Oscar Wilde

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

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob

—Oscar Wilde

Books

Oscar Wilde has the following books quoted on Quodid: