Oscar Wilde quotes: sparkling sentences from the poet.
“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
“Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.”
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”
“Life is never fair. And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.”
“One’s dreams must be big enough so as not to lose sight of them.”
“Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.”
“We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”
“Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.”
“The best people to work for are me, myself and I.”
“Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight when we pursue them.”
“Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.”
“Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life.”
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.”
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
“A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.”
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking other people to live as one wishes to live.”
“Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”
“The only one you need in your life is that person who shows you he needs you in his.”
“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them and to dominate them.”
“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”
“Don’t be discouraged if your children reject your advice. Years later they will offer it to their own offspring.”
“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
“True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.”
“I don’t say we all ought to misbehave. But we ought to look as if we could.”
“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
“The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously—and have somebody find out.”
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
“People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
“The best revenge is to live well.”
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
“Talent borrows, genius steals!”
“It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
“With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?”
“I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified.”
“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”
“Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.”
“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
“The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”
“The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret. Great passion are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing visions have to paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.”
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
“Too much work, and no vacation, deserves at least a small libation. So hail, my friends, and raise your glasses. Work’s the curse of the drinking classes.”
“Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.”
