The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.

Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkenness.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.

LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.ALGERNONI hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.

Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.

The 19thc hatred of Realism is Caliban’s enraged reaction to seeing his own face in the mirror. The 19thc rejection of Romanticism is Caliban’s fury at not seeing his face reflected in the mirror.

The Number our envious Persons, confirmation our capability.

LADY BRACKNELLThirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was...

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.

In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I...

They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving.

But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?GWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest.JACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me then?GWENDOLEN (glibly): Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical...

Why can’t these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it.

Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used...

Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon

I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do – the day after.

I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, it cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may...

VICOMTE DE NANJAC. And you are younger and more Cbeautiful than ever. How do you manage it?MRS. CHEVELEY. By making it a rule only to talk to per- Yfectly charming people like yourself.

Contudo, o mais corajoso dentre nós tem medo de si mesmo. A mutilação do selvagem tem a sua trágica sobrevivência na própria renúncia que corrompe as nossas vidas. Somos todos castigados por nossas renúncias. Cada impulso que tentamos aniquilar germina em nossa mente e nos envenena. Pecando, o corpo se liberta de seu pecado, porque...

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?

You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.

You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.

The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.

If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbroker’s do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

Society–civilized society, at least–is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef … Even the cardinal...

Bad artists always admire each others work.

In the strangely simple economy of the world people only get what they give, and to those who have not enough imagination to penetrate the mere outward of things and feel pity, what pity can be given save that of scorn?

Utterly, irrevocably, lost

The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.

[W]as verabscheuenswerter sei, die Zeichen der Sünde oder die des Alter.

the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.

Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping.

Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is asacrament that should be taken kneeling.

Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Nicio viata nu e stricata cu exceptia celei care este oprita. Daca vrei sa strici caracterul cuiva nu trebuie decat sa il reformezi

Oh, I can’t explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only...