353 quotes
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
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.
Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb a the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.
An Ideal Husband (1895)
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.
There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.
Many a woman has a past; but I am told she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.
For there is no art where there is no style, and no style where there is no unity, and unity is of the individual.
The Critic as Artist (1891)
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
The Model Millionaire (1912)
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)