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 aim of Love is to love: no more, and no less.
Some things are more precious because they don't last long.
She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear ou...
People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.
Paradox though it may seem - and paradoxes are always dangerous things - it is none the less true that Life imitates art far more than Art imitates life.
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.
No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with itshideous fires, you will feel it...
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 experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all.
Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.
Misfortunes one can endure--they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults--ah!--there is the sting of life.
Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.
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!
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...
Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things r...
Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.