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Private property ... has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.

— Oscar Wilde

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More quotes by Oscar Wilde

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

Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

A Woman of No Importance (1893)

A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic?]

Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

A Woman of No Importance (1893)

All Oscar Wilde quotes →

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Oscar Wilde (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.