Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

Time is a waste of money.

A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action.

But we who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments. We have nothing else to think of. Suffering ― curious as it may sound to you ― is the means by which we exist, because it is the only means by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance of suffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, of our continued identity.

One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed one, nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.

The ages live in history through their anachronisms.

We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.

In every sphere of life, form is the beginning of things. […] Forms are the food of faith, cried Newman in one of those great moments of sincerity that made us admire the know the man. […] The Creeds are believed, not because they are rational, but because they are repeated.

Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.

Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.

I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know myself better.

Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

Colonel. Can she read and write? Peter. Ay, that she can, sir. Colonel. Then she is a dangerous woman.

Intellect is in itself an exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.

One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.

Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them. They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.

For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain Became Christ’s snow-white seal. VI.

he was punished by the envy of journalists, and by the malignant pedantry of half-civilised judges. Envy in his case overleaped itself: the hate of his justicers was so diabolic that they have given him to the pity of mankind forever; they it is who have made him eternally interesting to humanity, a tragic figure of imperishable renown.

Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.

The Little Ship Have your forgotten the ship love I made as a childish toy, When you were a little girl love, And I was a little boy? Ah! never in all the fleet love Such a beautiful ship was seen, For the sides were painted blue love And the deck was yellow and green. I carved a wonderful mast love From my Father’s Sunday stick, You cut up your one good dress love That the sail should be of silk. And I launched it on the pond love And I called it after you, And for the want of the bottle of wine love We christened it with the dew. And we put your doll on board love With a cargo of chocolate cream, But the little ship struck on a cork love And the doll went down with a scream! It is forty years since then love And your hair is silver grey, And we sit in our old armchairs love And we watch our children play. And I have a wooden leg love And the title of K. C. B. For bringing Her Majesty’s Fleet love Over the stormy sea. But I’ve never forgotten the ship love I made as a childish toy When you were a little girl love And I was a sailor boy.

The family as subversive of true socialistic and communal unity is to be annihilated.” Yes, President, I agree completely with Article 5. A family is a terrible incumbrance, especially when one is not married.