To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
Thinking, Patience & EnduranceOscar WildeDeath must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
DeathOscar Wilde - The Canterville GhostChildren begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Children & Childhood, ParentsOscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian GrayNever love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.
Oscar WildeIf you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Laughing & Smile, Truth, CriticismOscar WildeTo regret one's own experience is to arrest one's own development.
ExperienceOscar Wilde (Irish Author)Men always want to be a woman's first love. What women like is to be a man's last romance.
Love, Men & WomenOscar WildeEducation is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Learning, EducationOscar WildeTo live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
LifeOscar Wilde (1854-1900, irish author)The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
TemptationOscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian GrayWhat seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.
Oscar WildeIn this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Ambition, DesireOscar WildeI am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.
ExperienceOscar WildeThe only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.
Gossip & Rumors, PopularityOscar WildeNo great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
ArtOscar WildeLaughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and by far the best ending for one.
Laughing & Smile, FriendshipOscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian GrayPeople are either charming or tedious.
Oscar WildeMore than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
Oscar WildeKeep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Love, Sun, GardenOscar WildeMan is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Humanity, MaskenOscar WildeOne can survive everything nowadays except death.
Oscar Wilde, OscarianaI am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
Oscar WildeA red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.
RosesOscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under SocialismKeep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Love, GardenOscar WildeArt finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.
ArtOscar WildeThe public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
Humanity, Knowledge, CuriosityOscar WildeDeath and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
19th CenturyOscar WildeIf you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
Oscar Wilde