Quotes from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do. ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale, “and Life is very dear to all.  It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl.  Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill.  Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“I like to do all the talking myself.  It saves time, and prevents arguments.” “But”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.” “Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“I like hearing myself talk.  It is one of my greatest pleasures.  I often have long conversations all by myself,”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget that I am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different. As for keeping myself dry, there is evidently no one here who can at all appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for myself, I don’t care. The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“I like hearing myself talk.  It is one of my greatest pleasures.  I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“¿Debe la alegría vestirse con lo que fabrico el Dolor?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children’s heads. ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince.  He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, “I see that you belong to the lower orders.  A person of my position is never useful.  We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than sufficient.  I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem to recommend.  Indeed, I have always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Then you are quite behind the age,” said the Water-rat.  “Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.” “The”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women.  There is no Mystery so great as Misery. ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“She sang of the Love that is perfected by death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle. “A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the Cracker nearly exploded with laughter.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“Love is wiser than Philosophy, though he is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty... His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“What a curious shape you are!  May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?” “It”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“So the swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets...”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“There is no good talking to him,” said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for he has gone away.” “Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket.  “I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention.  I like hearing myself talk.  It is one of my greatest pleasures.  I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” “Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-fly; and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“— Ce n'est pas en Egypte que je vais, répondit le Martinet. Je vais à la maison de la Mort. La Mort n'est-elle pas la sœur du Sommeil?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

About the author

Popular quotes

“Idite, prijatelji, i neka vas hrani ona umna sfera, čije je središte svuda a obim nigde, i koju mi zovemo bog. A kada dođete u svoj svet, posvedočite da pod zemljom ima velikog blaga i divnih stvari. Nije pogrešila Cerera, koju je cela vasiona već uvažavala, – jer je ljude poučila veštini zemljoradnje i pronalaskom žita prekinula sa njihovom grubom pićom žirovkom, – što je toliko naricala kada joj je kći u podzemlje odvedena. Ona je svakako predviđala da će njena kći pod zemljom naći više dobra i prevashodnosti no što je to ona, mati njena, iznad zemlje stvorila.
Šta je bilo sa veštinom koju je mudri Prometej nekada pronašao: da se izaziva grom s neba i nebeski oganj? Svakako ste je izgubili. Napustila je vašu hemisferu, a ovde, pod zemljom, ona je u upotrebi. Vi se ponekad zgražate, videći da vam gradovi gore i da ih obuhvata plamen od groma i ognja eterskog, a ne znate ko to čini, gde to čini i s koje strane na vas navodi tu napast, koja je vama grozna, a mi smo na nju svikli i njom se koristimo po svom nahođenju. Vaši filozofi koji se žale da su drevni pisci već sve napisali i da im nisu ostavili ništa novo da otkriju, svakako nisu u pravu. Ono što vam se s neba javlja i što vi nazivate pojavama, ono što vam zemlja pokazuje, ono što sadrže more i druge reke, ne da se uporediti sa onim što zemlja skriva.”
― François Rabelais, quote from Gargantua and Pantagruel

“Make every negative into a positive,” as my mother says. Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.”
― Lance Armstrong, quote from It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

“But guessing a thing ain’t knowing a thing.”
― Patrick Ness, quote from Chaos Walking: A Trilogy

“The jeep would round the bend, be hit by a dozen bullets at once, and that would be the end of his petty history of unfocused groping and unimportant dissatisfactions.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Naked and the Dead

“show?” My heart just about leapt out of my”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Fallen Star

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.