Earl of the Wilde

The sanity of some is trumped by the wit of others. I introduce you to the Earl of the Wilde.*


“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.”

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

“To define is to limit.”

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.”

“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.”

“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is [hu]man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”

“Women are made to be loved not understood.”

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For 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.”

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“I never travel without my diary. One must always have something sensational to read on the train.”

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

“Who, being loved, is poor?”

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.”

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”

“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.”

“Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.”

“Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginitive”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

“Every woman is a rebel.”

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

“The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.”

“Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.”

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.”

“One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.”

“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself."

“There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being”

“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.”

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”

“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”

“I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.”

“Punctuality is the thief of time”

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”


Quote Source -> [link]

The Picture of Dorian Gray -> [link]

Full Book -> [link]

**The quote on this piece, while widely attributed to Oscar Wilde, was originally stated by Georges Clemenceau -> [link]