The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde

Algernon. Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won’t quite approve of your being here. Jack. May I ask why? Algernon. My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.

Algernon. 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.

I am quite aware of the fact, and I don’t propose to discuss modern culture. It isn’t the sort of thing one should talk of in private.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don’t listen, and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

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.

Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious! Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well.

I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

Miss Prism. No married man is ever attractive except to his wife. Chasuble. And often, I’ve been told, not even to her.

If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.

Jack. How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless. Algernon. Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others, and waiting, even to be married, is quite out of the question.