Oscar Wilde Quotes & Sayings

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

“To define is to limit.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“I like men who have a future and women who have a past.”

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

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”

“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.”

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

“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.”

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”