“It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.”
“One should never make one's debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age.”
“There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”
“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”
“The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.”
“London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.”
“Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.”
“It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.”
“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason.”
“Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.”
“There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.”
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”
“Lord Illingworth: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. Mrs. Allonby: No man does. That is his.”
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
“The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored.”
“By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful.”
“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.”
“The English public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral.”
“Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.”
“It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.”
“The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.”
“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”
“Public Opinion... an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.”
“Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a man's last romance.”
“Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable.”
“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”
“Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.”
“A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
“The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.”
“Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain.”