The 100 most iconic quotes of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, born on 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, is remembered as the author whose literary contributions challenged societal norms and conventions, making him an enduring icon of wit and wisdom, a figure whose words continue to inspire and entertain readers to this day. He was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet who became one of the most prominent figures of the late 19th-century literary scene.

Throughout his literary career, Wilde exhibited a remarkable ability to express complex ideas with brevity and unparalleled eloquence. His plays, such as “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” and “An Ideal Husband,” dazzle audiences with their sharp dialogue, satirical social commentary, and exploration of themes like identity, societal expectations, and the masks we wear in our daily lives.

His words continue to captivate and resonate with readers, serving as a testament to his enduring relevance and profound insights into the human condition. Through his plays, novels, and essays, Wilde fearlessly confronted societal norms and conventions, challenging the status quo with his sharp wit and satirical brilliance. His ability to blend humor with profound social commentary allowed him to shed light on the hypocrisy and superficiality of his time, while also offering a mirror to our own.

Renowned for his razor-sharp wit, profound observations, and unapologetic flamboyance, Wilde stands as a literary figure of immense significance, celebrated for his plays, novels, and unforgettable quotes. In this blog post, we invite you to delve into the brilliance of Oscar Wilde through a collection of his most iconic quotes.

The quotes we present in this blog post are not only memorable but also serve as windows into the multifaceted mind of Oscar Wilde. From thought-provoking insights on life, love, and human nature to humorous quips that challenge societal norms, Wilde’s words have an enduring power that transcends time and resonate with readers across generations.

Prepare to be captivated by Wilde’s sharp intellect, his audacious views on society, and his unparalleled ability to distill profound truths into beautifully crafted sentences. Let’s embrace the beauty of language, the power of satire, and the importance of remaining true to ourselves, just as Wilde did throughout his extraordinary life and career:

1. “The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.” — Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
2. “I like men who have a future and women who have a past.” — A Women of No Importance
3. “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
4. “In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
5. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
6. “I can resist everything except temptation.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
7. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — An Ideal Husband
8. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
9. “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
10. “I have nothing to declare except my genius.” — The Critic as Artist
11. “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.” — The Critic as Artist
12. “I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
13. “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” — An Ideal Husband
14. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
15. “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” — Intentions
16. “You like everyone, that is to say, you are indifferent to everyone.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
17. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” — The Soul of Man under Socialism
18. “I am not young enough to know everything.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
19. “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
20. “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” — The Critic as Artist
21. “I can’t help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
22. “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
23. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
24. “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” — The Soul of Man under Socialism
25. “There is no sin except stupidity.” — The Critic as Artist
26. “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
27. “In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
28. “When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know that it is.” — The Duchess of Padua
29. “I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
30. “Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.” — The Sphinx
31. “Experience is merely the name men give to their mistakes.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
32. “I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
33. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
34. “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.” — A Woman of No Importance
35. “Life is too important to be taken seriously.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
36. “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
37. “I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously.” — The Critic as Artist
38. “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
39. “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
40. “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” — A Woman of No Importance
41. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
42. “The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
43. “We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
44. “I am not a bit afraid of ghosts. I have lived with them all my life.” — Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
45. “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
46. “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” — A Woman of No Importance
47. “A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
48. “I thought you would come, if I sent for you,” he said. “But I didn’t send for you to make fun of me? Why do you laugh at me?” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
49. “Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
50. “There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
51. “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
52. “You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
53. “One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
54. “It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t.” — The Picture of Dorian
55. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
56. “Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
57. “The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
58. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. “One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
60. “The secret of life is in art.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
61. “I like men who have a future and women who have a past.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
62. “Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
63. “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
64. “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
65. “I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
66. “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
67. “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
68. “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
69. “There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
70. “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir, because I’m not myself, you see.” — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Wilde’s adaptation)
71. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
72. “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
73. “I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
74. “I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
75. “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
76. “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
77. “Divorces are made in heaven.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
78. “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
79. “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
80. “I am not in favor of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
81. “One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.” — A Woman of No Importance
82. “It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
83. “I like persons better than principles and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
84. “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.” — The Critic as Artist
85. “It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
86. “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
87. “One can resist everything except temptation.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
88. “The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.” — A Woman of No Importance
89. “In married life, three is company, and two is none.” — The Importance of Being Earnest
90. “I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
91. “He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
92. “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.” — A Woman of No Importance
93. “I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray
94. “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” — An Ideal Husband
95. “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” — An Ideal Husband
96. “Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.” — The Duchess of Padua
97. “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made.” — The Soul of Man under Socialism
98. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
99. “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” — Lady Windermere’s Fan
100. “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” — The Picture of Dorian Gray

This set of quotes reflect Wilde’s mastery of language and his ability to distill complex ideas into concise and memorable phrases. They capture the essence of his unique perspective, revealing a writer who was unafraid to question, challenge, and celebrate the intricacies of human nature and the high society of his time.

In the realm of literature, Oscar Wilde’s words remain timeless and captivating, and continue to inspire writers, thinkers, and artists around the world, reminding us of the power of words to transcend time. His words serve as a source of wisdom, humor, and introspection, encouraging us to reevaluate our beliefs, embrace our individuality, and strive for authenticity in a world that often demands conformity.

May his words continue to inspire, provoke thought, and remind us of the eternal value of embracing our own unique voices in a world hungry for authenticity.

Marina Moré Andrés