Oscar Wilde

“Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself.She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance.”

“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”

“Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art”

“For what is truth? In matters of relogion, it is simply the opinion that has survived. In matters of science, it is the ultimate sensation. In matters of art, it is one's last mood.”

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.”

“The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding. The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married. One should always be in love - that's the reason one should never marry.”

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

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

“For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us.”

“So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape (...)”

“Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.”

“Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.”

“Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.”

“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.”

“Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

“I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.”

“You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.”

“The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.”