Oscar Wilde · 462 pages
Rating: (51.5K votes)
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It's perfectly childish to be in mourning for a man who is actually staying a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“Miss Prism: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.
Cecily: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely - or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“Do you really keep a diary? I'd give anything to look at it. May I?
Oh, no. You see, it is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.
Algernon. I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that business.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“JACK: Apoplexy will do perfectly well, Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don't they?
ALGERNON: Yes, but it's hereditary, my dear fellow. It's a sort of thing that runs in families.
JACK: Good heavens! Then I certainly won't choose that. What can I say?
ALGERNON: Oh! Say influenza.
JACK Oh, no! that wouldn't sound probable at all. Far too many people have had it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind and he died of what he saw there.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, quote from The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
“The library spilled onto the floor and into the other rooms. Some books held up wobbly tables, others were literally swept under the rug. Sabrina had once found a book inside the toilet tank.”
― Michael Buckley, quote from The Problem Child
“Your objective is to avoid being on a string.
The first step, I think, is to get over the fear of losing a man by confronting him. Just stop being afraid, already. The most successful people in this world recognize that taking chances to get what they want is much more productive than sitting around being too scared to take a shot. The same philosophy can be applied to dating: if putting your requirements on the table means you risk him walking away, it's a risk you have to take. Because that fear can trip you up every time; all too many of you let the guy get away with disrespecting you, putting in minimal effort and holding on to the commitment to you because you're afraid he's going to walk away and you'll be alone again. And we men? We recognize this and play on it, big time.”
― Steve Harvey, quote from Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment
“It’s really hard to be turned on by a man who shows up for a date in corduroy pants and big white walking shoes that look as though he’s shoved his feet inside of two giant pillows.”
― Helen Argiro, quote from Tales of Sex & Suburban Lunacy
“I raised my right hand and placed my left on the Quran, which was being held by my wife and mom. Suddenly, I was blinded by a cascade of camera flashes...”
― Keith Ellison, quote from My Country 'Tis of Thee
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