Man is a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex, multiform creature that bears within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh is tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead. Oscar Wilde More Quotes by Oscar Wilde More Quotes From Oscar Wilde The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. Oscar Wilde differences media writing Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men. Oscar Wilde rage anger men Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage makes her something like a public building. Oscar Wilde romance marriage years For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Oscar Wilde grief moon taken Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things. There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation. The thin beaten-out leaf of tremulous gold that chronicles the direction of forces the eye cannot see is in comparison coarse. It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain. Oscar Wilde sad pain eye I like men who have a future and women who have a past. Oscar Wilde future women wise When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. Oscar Wilde eye personality art She...can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it. Oscar Wilde subjects knows Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy. Oscar Wilde mistake character past Then there was a man who said, 'I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; by then it was too late' Oscar Wilde funny-love anniversary real The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. Oscar Wilde optimism relationship thinking A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature. Oscar Wilde nature links art The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. Oscar Wilde poverty impossible trying It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends. Oscar Wilde humor friendship funny One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. Oscar Wilde heart witty laughing The only way to even approach doing something perfectly is through experience, and experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. Oscar Wilde names mistake giving But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality. Oscar Wilde regret loss happiness My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip. What is the difference between scandal and gossip? Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Oscar Wilde gossip scandal differences Would you be in any way offended if I said that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection? Oscar Wilde perfection said way He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigraph on his tombstone. Oscar Wilde betrayal tombstone writing
