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4552070 The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. humour oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
aef99ea "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 possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. relationships depression morality happiness depression-humor the-key-to-happiness oscar-wilde marriage-advice sins self-pity narcissism self-improvement pride vice self-help sin Stephen Fry
ccb543d "How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless." "Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them." "I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances." -- algy calmness heartlessness oscar-wilde heartless muffins calm Oscar Wilde
27fe44e A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. inspirational oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
105c4ec 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. humor truth oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
5ac7146 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 knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live-- undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They never bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Henry; my brains, such as they are-- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks-- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly. wealth youth intelligence inspirational dorian-gray good-looks oscar-wilde stupid-people curse brains gods power Oscar Wilde
fb20913 I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort. oscar-wilde lgbt E.M. Forster
ff9dc60 " "If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it. humor epigrams oscar-wilde tribute wit Dorothy Parker
d58d4d0 I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. beauty the-picture-of-dorian-gray oscar-wilde colours painting Oscar Wilde
9988c64 As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible. oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
c0e0771 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 possible society is oneself. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. oscar-wilde fashion Oscar Wilde
31c8bd6 "So with curious eyes and sick surmise We watched him day by day, And wondered if each one of us Would end the self-same way, oscar-wilde soul eyes hell Oscar Wilde
31a5e5a Never mind what I say. I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood. oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
070fa4f Reading the very best writers--let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy--is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight. reading poetry oscar-wilde Harold Bloom
0766e09 because to influence a person is to give one's own soul. the-picture-of-dorian-gray oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
fd84440 Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. the-picture-of-dorian-gray wilde oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
35224fd Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast witticism oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
653da84 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. religion god oscar-wilde ideal prophecy Oscar Wilde
5efb719 Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It's perfectly childish to be in mourning for a man who is actually staying a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque. oscar-wilde the-importance-of-being-earnest jack Oscar Wilde
063e7c3 Damn it all, MacMurrough, are you telling me you are an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort?' 'If you mean am I Irish, the answer is yes. oscar-wilde Jamie O'Neill
5d4b70b Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak? Do you really think, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not-there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, terrible courage. I had that courage. oscar-wilde Oscar Wilde
438e578 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 the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and slightly despicable, in the first decade of Thatcher and Reagan, to hear former and actual radicals intone piously against 'the politics of confrontation.' I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive. politics political-radicalism social-structure-of-the-uk united-kingdom margaret-thatcher ronald-reagan oscar-wilde the-importance-of-being-earnest social-class united-states england Christopher Hitchens
f7cd4d3 "... Likewise, Oscar Wilde asked an English journalist to look over 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' before publication: "Will you also look after my 'wills' and 'shalls' in proof. I am Celtic in my use of these words, not English." Wilde's novel upset virtually every code of late Victorian respectability, but he had to get his modal auxiliaries just right." -- oscar-wilde Andrew Elfenbein
4e2d456 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 of love, but the betrayal of oneself is a lifelong regret. Bosie is what became of me. He is spoiled, vindictive, utterly selfish and not very talented, but these are merely the facts. The truth is he was Hyacinth when Apollo loved him, he is ivory and gold, from his red rose-leaf lips comes music that fills me with joy, he is the only one who understands me. 'Even as a teething child throbs with ferment, so does the soul of him who gazes upon the boy's beauty; he can neither sleep at night nor keep still by day,' and a lot more besides, but before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself. Then we saw what we had made -- the piece of ice in the fist you cannot hold or let go. (He weeps.) writing love robbie-ross victorians oscar-wilde classics Tom Stoppard
30efc9f absinthe removes the bitter taste of failure and grants me strange visions which are charming principally because they cannot be written down. Only in absinthe do I become entirely free and, when I drink it, I understand the symbolic mysteries of odour and of colour. humour oscar-wilde Peter Ackroyd
63f6bfe Some drink to forget, I drink to remember. I drink in order to understand what I mean and to discover what I know. Under its benign influence all the stories and dramas which properly belong to the sphere of art are announced by me in conversation. humour oscar-wilde Peter Ackroyd
d1404fe One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines. shakespeare writing oscar-wilde Peter Ackroyd
84b395a I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one's life. One sees shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon's head, and one suffers, because it does not return one to stone. -- Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson (December 28, 1898) in the beginning of the book oxford oscar-wilde Julia Whelan
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