Oscar Wilde (1854–1900,) fully Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, was an Irish playwright, poet, essayist, editor, and author of many witty epigrams. Wilde’s dazzling ascension to notoriety also included his tragic fall from grace.
Wilde was born in Dublin. His father was a successful surgeon and his mother, a writer and a literary host. Wilde was educated at Dublin’s Trinity College and Oxford’s Magdalen College. After graduation, he moved to London to pursue a literary career, announcing, “I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous I’ll be notorious.”
Wilde’s output was diverse. The first volume of his poetry was published in 1881. He contributed to publications such as the Pall Mall Gazette, wrote fairy tales, and published a novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891.)
Wilde’s most exceptional talent was for writing plays, and he produced a string of extremely popular comedies including Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892,) Salome (1892,) An Ideal Husband (1895,) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895.)
Drama and tragedy stained Wilde’s private life. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884. Even when he loved his wife and adored his two sons, Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of an aristocrat. This resulted in one of the most famous trials of the 19th century. Wilde lost a libel suit after being accused as a homosexual. The prosecution exposed many details of Wilde’s private life. He was arrested, tried for gross indecency, and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
When he got out of prison, he wrote his most celebrated poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898,) concerning inhumane prison conditions. With his reputation ruined, he wandered around France and Italy. His health declined rapidly, and he died penniless in a seedy Paris hotel at age 46.
Wilde is considered the world’s most fabulous wit ever. He was a brilliant conversationalist; anecdotes abound about his famous retorts. Once, when U.S. Customs asked him if he had anything to declare upon his arrival in New York, Wilde replied, “Nothing but my genius.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Oscar Wilde
The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly… men don’t like it.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Men & Women, Men, Women
Misfortunes one can endure—they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults—Ah! there is the sting of life.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Failure, Self-Discovery
When a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.
—Oscar Wilde
Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.
—Oscar Wilde
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Art, Artists
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
—Oscar Wilde
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Inaction
Only good questions deserve good answers.
—Oscar Wilde
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.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Mistakes, Family
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Advice
Man reaches his perfection, not through what he has, not even through what he does, but entirely through what he is.
—Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Actors, Honesty, Self-Discovery, Caution, Acting
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked, and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Hypocrisy, Deception
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Fashion, Clothing
Lying, a telling of beautiful untrue things, this is the proper aim of art.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Art
The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own sake.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Lies
To be premature is to be perfect.
—Oscar Wilde
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Adversity, Tragedy, Desires, Happiness, Success, Money, Age, Life
Charity creates a multitude of sins.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Charity
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
—Oscar Wilde
What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.
—Oscar Wilde
Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.
—Oscar Wilde
A sentimentalist is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of a single thing.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Values
When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Money
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Feelings, Insults, Happiness
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Past, Perspective, Change, Sin, Future, Reflection
Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.
—Oscar Wilde
‘Know thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Man
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Praise, Men
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Truth
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Experience
Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Power
The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Money
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Taxes, Happiness
To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: People
The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.
—Oscar Wilde
The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Past, Past and Present
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Conscience
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
—Oscar Wilde
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Thinking, Thought
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