A Woman of No Importance

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.

Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

But she is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.

Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!

When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. MRS ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.

The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married.

I don't know how to talk. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing.

LORD ILLINGWORTH What do you think she'd do if I kissed her? MRS ALLONBY Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove? LORD ILLINGWORTH Fall in love with her, probably.

I was wrong. God's law is only Love.

It was you I thought of all the time, I gave to them the love you did not need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs.

MRS ALLONBY Is she such a mystery? LORD ILLINGWORTH She is more than a mystery - she is a mood. MRS ALLONBY Moods don't last. LORD ILLINGWORTH It is their chief charm.

MRS ALLONBY I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk. HESTER I think the stupid people talk a great deal. MRS ALLONBY Ah, I never listen!

Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.

But don't you think one can be happy when on is married? Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married. But if one is in love? One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

You know I have loved him always. But we are very poor. Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden...

My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth; I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important.

No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman's bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.

MRS. ALLONBY. It is only fair to tell you beforehand he has got no conversation at all. LADY STUTFIELD. I adore silent men. MRS ALLONBY. Oh, Ernest isn't silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don't know. I haven't listened to him for years.

To win back my youth, there is nothing I wouldn't do - except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.

Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.

The one advantage of playing with fire, Lady Caroline, is that one never gets even singed. It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.

MRS ALLONBY Have you tried a good reputation? LORD ILLINGWORTH It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected.

You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely to keep them quiet for a season.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. Now I have merely everything that other people want, which isn't nearly so pleasant.

Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d'heure made up of exquisite moments