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It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
I have given up trying to reform him. It would take a Public Company with a Board of Directors and a paid Secretary to do that.
We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.
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!
One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.
I will tell you, if you solemnly promise to tell everybody else.
LADY CAROLINE. There are a great many things you haven't got in America, I am told, Miss Worsley. They say you have no ruins, and no curiosities. MRS. ALLONBY. [To LADY STUTFIELD.] What nonsense! They have their mothers and their manners.
after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. With the greatest pleasure. [To MRS. ALLONBY.] I'll be back in a moment. People's mothers always bore me to death. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. MRS. ALLONBY. No man does. That is his.
When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.
duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn't do - except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.
Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.
Nothing refines but the intellect.
When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.
I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.
Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden.
As for a title, a title is really rather a nuisance in these democratic days. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. Now I have merely everything that other people want, which isn't nearly so pleasant.
No one in particular. A man of no importance.
