The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde

More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes,

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others,

it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.