I’m not quite sure there has ever been a pithy wit quite like Oscar Wilde’s. Reading his work is to have your highlighter in hand, covering the page with it, as every line is quotable. It’s a travesty that he didn’t live in the age of Twitter – his feed would have been straight fire. I reckon there’s an apt Oscar Wilde quote for every occasion, and this is my chance to prove it. Here are 40 of the best Oscar Wilde quotes.
Funny Oscar Wilde Quotes
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.
An Ideal Husband (1895)
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune… to lose both seems like carelessness.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
The Relation Of Dress To art (1885)
I can resist everything except temptation.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
The Children Of The Poets (1886)
To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do – except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.
A Woman Of No Importance (1893)
He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one’s eyes, and does not look at him.
The Birthday Of The Infanta (1892)
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
One can survive everything nowadays except death.
Oscariana (1907)
Inspiring Oscar Wilde Quotes
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
An Ideal Husband (1895)
The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
The Critic As Artist (1891)
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
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 Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
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.
The Critic As Artist (1891)
Don’t imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Oscar Wilde Quotes About Love, Marriage, and Sex
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
A Woman Of No Importance (1893)
In married life, three is company, and two is none.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.
The Epigrams Of Oscar Wilde
The number of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman… Or the want of it in a man.
A Woman Of No Importance (1893)
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.
An Ideal Husband (1895)
Oscar Wilde Quotes About Society and Friendship
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.
The Portrait Of Mr W. H. (1889)
My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people’s.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1890)
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (1887)
The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life.
A Woman Of No Importance (1893)
The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.
Phrases And Philosophies For The Use Of The Young (1894)
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1890)
Resonant Oscar Wilde Quotes
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
The Portrait Of Mr W. H. (1889)
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
All art is immoral.
Intentions (1891)
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
The Critic As Artist (1891)
Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
The Soul Of Man Under Socialism (1891)
It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.
The Importance Of Being Earnest (1895)
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