Oscar Wilde Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Oscar Wilde quotes, Oscar Wilde sayings, and Oscar Wilde proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde
The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer. Oscar Wilde
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire, / From passionate pain to deadlier delight, - / I am too young to live without desire, / Too young art thou to waste this summer night. Oscar Wilde
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Oscar Wilde
Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness. Oscar Wilde
Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about. But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory as my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. Oscar Wilde
I want my pleasure unbitted by any drop of pain. Oscar Wilde
To realize oneself through pleasure is finer than to do so through pain. Oscar Wilde
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
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it. Oscar Wilde
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astonishing stupidity of optimism. Oscar Wilde
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. Oscar Wilde
Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable. Oscar Wilde
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. Oscar Wilde
Life's too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation. Oscar Wilde
For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. Oscar Wilde
The English have a miraculous power to change wine into water. Oscar Wilde
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. Oscar Wilde
I have made an important discovery that alcohol. taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication. Oscar Wilde
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result. Oscar Wilde
I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes. Oscar Wilde
Ah, 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. Oscar Wilde
It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. Oscar Wilde
Men always want to be a woman's first love women like to be a man's last romance. Oscar Wilde
Bad artists always admire each others work. Oscar Wilde
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy. Oscar Wilde
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist. That is all. Oscar Wilde
That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography. Oscar Wilde