The Wisdom of Oscar Wilde Read Online Free Page A

may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.
    A Woman of No Importance
    I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    One should never make one’s debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one’s old age.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it has never happened.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Society, civilised society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals....
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Cecil Graham: Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain.
    Lady Windermere’s Fan
    The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up.
    “The Soul of Man under Socialism”
    Lady Bracknell: Good-afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving well.
    Algernon: I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
    Lady Bracknell: That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    Cecily: Pray do! I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid.
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    Cecily: This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manner. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
    Gwendolen: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    In point of fact, what is interesting about people in good Society … is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask.
    “The Decay of Lying”

CHARACTER
    I can resist everything except temptation.
    Lady Windermere’s Fan
    Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
    “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
    Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    Nowadays to be found intelligible is to be found out.
    Lady Windermere’s Fan
    We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
    Lady Windermere’s Fan
    The aim of life is self-development. To realise one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature … to sympathise with a friend’s success.
    “The Soul of Man under Socialism”
    Remember that the sentimentalist is always a cynic at heart. Indeed sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism.
    De Profundis
    Every little action of the common day makes or unmakes a character.
    De Profundis
    Those who have much are often greedy, those who have little always share.
    De Profundis
    The supreme vice is shallowness.
    De Profundis
    No one survives being over-estimated, nor is there any surer way of destroying an author’s reputation than to glorify him without judgment and to praise him without tact.
    “Great Writers by Little Men”
    Anybody can be reasonable, but to be sane is not common; and sane poets are as rare as blue lilies....
    “A Note on Some Modern Poets”
    How appalling is that ignorance which is the inevitable result of the fatal habit of imparting opinions!
    “The Critic as Artist”
    What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
    “The Critic as Artist”
Similarly in The Picture of Dorian Gray
    Temperament is the primary requisite of the critic....
    “The Critic as