A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

So with curious eyes and sick surmiseWe watched him day by day,And wondered if each one of usWould end the self-same way,For none can tell to what red HellHis sightless soul may stray.

Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn’t pretend that...

E non si tratta soltanto della possibilità di riconoscere nel Cristo quella stretta unione di personalità e di perfezione che forma la vera differenza tra Arte classica e Arte romantica, e che fa del Cristo...

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.

I’m a man of simple tastes. I’m always satisfied with the best.

I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.

WILDE: Oh — Bosie! (He weeps.) I have to go back to him, you know. Robbie will be furious but it can’t be helped. The betrayal of one’s friends is a bagatelle in the stakes...

Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every human being should be the realisation of some ideal, either in the mind of God or in the mind of man.

JACKYou’re quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.GWENDOLENOh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.

[On Oscar Wilde:]”If, with the literate, I amImpelled to try an epigram,I never seek to take the credit;We all assume that Oscar said it.[Life Magazine, June 2, 1927]

Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins – is self pity. Self pity is the worst...

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.

I called an insurance company to get a quote. They gave me one of Oscar Wilde’s best.

I am quite scandalous, you see. I come packaged with unpredictable moments, brutal honesty, calamitous outbursts, the ghastly need for love, a fiendish lack of filter, the horrific need to question everything, nauseating affection, offensive...

I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself.

Those who pay their bills on time are soon forgotten. It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

I am not perfect, but if I looked perfect to everyone I must have been rocking imperfect perfectly to a few imperfect souls that seek imperfection vs. perfection, in an imperfect world where God asks...

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.Vice and virtue are the artist’s materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the...

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body...

Beautiful untrue things are even more beautiful when they’re true.

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid....

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking other people to live as one wishes to live.

So he was queer, E.M. Forster. It wasn’t his middle name (that would be ‘Morgan’), but it was his orientation, his romping pleasure, his half-secret, his romantic passion. In the long-suppressed novel Maurice the title...

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent

Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.

Some believe that as an icon the image of Oscar Wilde is too old and notorious–all right, not an icon, let him be our oriflamme.

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.And falsehoods the truths of other people.Other people are quite dreadful. The only...

Hearts Live By Being Wounded

The ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the...

You dislike Basil because, without his art, his life is horribly plain. Unlike Dorian who has made an art out of his life. Basil produces art; Dorian consumes it and lets it overwhelm him.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

It is perfectly monstrous,’ he said, at last, ‘the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.

I drink to separate my body from my soul.

When in Reading Gaol he told me that the warders in the dock had been gentle and kind, but the visit of the chaplain in his first prison began with these words:’Mr. Wilde, did you...

My doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven [o’clock]. It makes me talk in my sleep.