“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“What of Art?
-It is a malady.
--Love?
-An Illusion.
--Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
--You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
--What are you?
-To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Some things are more precious because they don't last long.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
Born place: in Dublin, Ireland
Born date October 16, 1854
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“Only one thing, in those years, drew from her a cry of fury. This was the publication, in 1563, of a single, stout book. It was known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; and it was an astonishing feat of propaganda. For this book, carefully written to evoke every man’s pity and rage, described in detail the martyrs of England – by which it meant those Protestants who had perished under Bloody Mary. Of the Catholics who had suffered martyrdom before then, it said not a word. That some of these Protestants, like vicious old Latimer, had been burners and torturers themselves, it conveniently forgot. The sale of the book was prodigious. Soon, it seemed, only Catholic persecution of Protestants had ever existed. “ ’Tis a lie,” Susan would protest. “And I fear it will persist.” It would indeed. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was destined to be read in families, to give warning to children, and to shape English people’s perception of the Catholic Church for generations.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from London
“It was like drowning, only from the inside out.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”
― Colum McCann, quote from Let the Great World Spin
“Ranel had said that the murderer wore a ring with a red gemstone. Looking at Akkarin's hands, she was almost disappointed to see they were bare. Not even a mark to hint that a ring might have been worn regularly. His fingers were long and elegant, yet masculine...”
― Trudi Canavan, quote from The Novice
“Eric walks toward me, and I back away by instinct. I try not to be afraid of him, but I know how smart he is and that if I’m not careful he’ll notice that I keep staring at her, and that will be my undoing.”
― Veronica Roth, quote from Free Four: Tobias Tells the Divergent Knife-Throwing Scene
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