Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), full name Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, was an Irish poet, playwright, novelist, and wit. He wrote in different literary forms throughout 1880s, but he became one of the most popular playwrights in London during the entire 1890s. As a playwright, he is chiefly known for his comedies "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1892) and "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895).Though he is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, he wrote some of the great novels in English Literature. He advocated "art for art's sake" which is evident in his only novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890). He died of meningitis at the age of 46.
Wisdom & Quotes
- It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- All art is quite useless.
- There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
- Anybody can be good in the country.
- A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
- A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
- All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
- I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
- The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
- Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?
- In married life, three is company and two is none.
- In matters of great importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
- Truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
- There is no sin except stupidity.
- The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
- Nothing succeeds like excess.
- Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
- The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life.
- There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.
- I can resist everything except temptation.
- (A cynic:) a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
- I have nothing to declare except my genius.
- All great ideas are dangerous.
- Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
- Yet each man kills the thing he loves
The brave man with a sword.
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol
- The vilest deeds like poison weeds
It is only what is good in man
That wastes and withers there.
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol
- To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
- Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness.
- (Sign over a piano) Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.
- In old days, men had the rack. Now they have the press.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox