The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (First Avenue Classics ™)

by Oscar Wilde

I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.

You don’t seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK. [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. ALGERNON. Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

ALGERNON. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. JACK. Is that clever? ALGERNON. It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be. JACK. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON. We have. JACK. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON. The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. JACK. What fools!

Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence in my garden utterly absurd.

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