Complete Works of Oscar Wilde Quotes

“To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Time is a waste of money.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.  What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Requiescat

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“But we who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments. We have nothing else to think of. Suffering ― curious as it may sound to you ― is the means by which we exist, because it is the only means by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance of suffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, of our continued identity.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Nowadays, people read too many books to appreciate any.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed one, nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“The ages live in history through their anachronisms.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“We lose too soon, and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.”
― Oscar Wilde, Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know myself better.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“The only thing that sustains one  through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.”
― Oscar Wilde, Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“In every sphere of life, form is the beginning of things. […] Forms are the food of faith, cried Newman in one of those great moments of sincerity that made us admire the know the man. […] The Creeds are believed, not because they are rational, but because they are repeated.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“I can resist everything except temptation.”
― Oscar Wilde, Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Look, look!” cried the Tree, “the rose is finished now;” but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart.”
― Oscar Wilde, Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Ordinary cruelty is simple stupidity. It comes from the entire want of imagination. It is the result in our days of stereotyped systems, of hard-and-fast rules, of centralisation, of officialism, and of irresponsible authority. Whenever there is centralisation there is stupidity. What is inhuman in modern life is officialism. Authority is as destructive to those who exercise it as it is to those on whom it is exercised.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.”
― Oscar Wilde, Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Intellect is in itself an exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“Colonel. Can she read and write?   Peter. Ay, that she can, sir. Colonel. Then she is a dangerous woman.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“We should remember that all the arts are fine arts and all the arts decorative arts.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

“It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.”
― Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde