The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism – are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hi...
The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married.
The great and golden rule of art as well as of life, wrote William Blake, is that the more distinct, sharp and defined the boundary line, the more perfect is the work of art; and the less keen and sha...
The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calcu...
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it.
One of the great secrets of life. Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair.
Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.
My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.What is the difference between scandal and gossip?Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by moral...
MRS ALLONBY I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.HESTER I think the stupid people talk a great deal.MRS ALLONBY Ah, I never listen!
Love is not fashionable anymore; the poets have killed it.
Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.
Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe, an...
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.
Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.