Oscar Wilde's witticisms

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 11)

Crying is the refuge of plain women, but the ruin of pretty ones.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

I can resist anything but temptation.

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

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 12)

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Only the shallow know themselves.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 13)

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 14)

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

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Do not speak ill of society, Algie. Only people who can't get in do that.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 15)

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Thirty-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.

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 16)

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 17)

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.

One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

(To be continued)

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Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 18)

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 19)

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

(To be continued)

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(Oscar Wilde's witticisms - part 20)

To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.

I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
(upon being told the cost of an operation)

(Concluded)