100 Famous Oscar Wilde Quotes About Life

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer and playwright who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was known for his wit, sarcasm, and challenging social norms. He wrote several popular plays, including “The Importance of Being Earnest”, and several books of poetry. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at some of the most famous and memorable quotes from this iconic figure.

Who Was Oscar Wilde?

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854. He was a brilliant student and was awarded a scholarship to study at Oxford University. After graduating, he moved to London and began a successful career as a writer and playwright. He was also known for his flamboyant lifestyle and his love of beautiful things. Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality in 1895, and he died in 1900, at the age of 46.

Why Are Oscar Wilde’s Quotes So Memorable?

Oscar Wilde’s quotes are memorable because they are witty, clever, and often quite profound. They offer a unique perspective on life, love, and the world, and they are often quoted because they resonate with people on a deep level. Whether you’re looking for a good laugh, a wise saying, or a thought-provoking statement, you’re sure to find something that speaks to you among Oscar Wilde’s quotes.

A Collection of the Best Oscar Wilde Quotes

Here are some of the most popular and enduring quotes from Oscar Wilde on life, love, society, beauty, and art.

1. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
2. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
3. I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.
4. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
5. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
6. If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
7. It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.
8. The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
9. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
10. 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.
11. You can never be overdressed or overeducated.
12. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
13. Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
14. A good friend will always stab you in the front.
15. Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.
16. I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.
17. Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
18. You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.
19. Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
20. I am not young enough to know everything.
21. The heart was made to be broken.
22. 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.
23. A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
24. Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
25. Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.
26. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
27. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
28. I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
29. I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
30. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
31. With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?
32. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
33. I can resist anything except temptation.
34. A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
35. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
36. To define is to limit.
37. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.
38. Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
39. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
40. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
41. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
42. Who, being loved, is poor?
43. Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.
44. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
45. I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
46. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
47. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
48. I have nothing to declare except my genius.
49. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
50. I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.
51. A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
52. After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
53. Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.
54. Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
55. We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
56. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
57. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
58. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
59. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
60. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.
61. To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
62. Every woman is a rebel.
63. Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
64. I like men who have a future and women who have a past.
65. Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard Some do it with a bitter look Some with a flattering word The coward does it with a kiss The brave man with a sword
66. The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.
67. Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.
68. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.
69. Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
70. To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
71. We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
72. A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
73. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being
74. If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.
75. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
76. Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
77. The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
78. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
79. There are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.
80. Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
81. 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.
82. There is no sin except stupidity.
83. The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
84. Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance.
85. Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.
86. Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
87. An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
88. Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.
89. I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.
90. The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.
91. One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
92. Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.
93. Life is too short to learn German
94. Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.
95. I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.
96. The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.
97. One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
98. Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.
99. Life is too short to learn German
100. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
101. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
102. Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
103. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

Conclusion of Oscar Wilde‘s Quotes

In conclusion, Oscar Wilde’s quotes are a testament to his wit, wisdom, and insight. They offer a unique perspective on life, love, and the world, and they continue to be widely quoted and revered today. Whether you’re a fan of his writing or just appreciate his clever take on life, there’s sure to be an Oscar Wilde quote that speaks to you.