Oscar Wilde

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

Behind Joy and Laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind Sorrow there is always Sorrow. Pain, unlike Pleasure, wears no mask.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.

I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.

In England ... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

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 (understand). Great passions 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 be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.

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.

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.