Top 100 Wilde Quotes
#1. Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.
Noel Coward
#3. If every witty thing that's said was true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
Michael R. Burch
#5. (...) At that time I put down the paranoia. I should have trusted my instincts (...) [Hannah Wilde]
Stephen Lloyd Jones
#6. (Oscar) Wilde is surely one of the most erotic writers who ever lived.
Tanith Lee
#7. I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my 'Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win' chanting and marching days - by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde's feelings about 'the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.'
Jonathan Dimbleby
#8. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. OSCAR WILDE, in a letter
Susan Sontag
#9. You quoted Oscar Wilde." I smiled.
Hayden laughed. "Yeah, that was, like, the height of geekdom."
"No. It was kind of cool.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
#11. There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde's plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics.
Brander Matthews
#12. I try to keep in mind Oscar Wilde's comment that "saints always have a past and sinners always have a future," so no investment should be ruled out simply on the basis of past history. We focus on liquidation analysis and liquidation analysis alone.
Peter Cundill
#13. Oscar Wilde said that conscience and cowardice are the same thing. What stops us from doing horrible things isn't our conscience but the fear of getting caught.
Louise Penny
#14. 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. - OSCAR WILDE, 1888
Erin Morgenstern
#15. Please Mia, don't make me write a song ... - Adam Wilde, If I Stay
Gayle Forman
#16. The opulence of Wilde is a bit too florid for Sherlock, who is a much darker character, ... fascinated by the human condition, but also overwhelmed by it.
Rupert Everett
#17. Who said it was thieves who know the price of everything and the value of nothing?"
"Oscar Wilde," I said. "And it's cynics, not thieves."
"Ah! That explains it, then.
Heidi Heilig
#19. As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.
Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.
George Plimpton
#20. I'm sure I've been influenced by every fine writer I've ever read, from Dickens and Austen to Auden and Jane Hirshfield. And also, the short stories of Updike, Cheever, Munro, Alice Adams, and Doris Lessing. And the plays of Oscar Wilde. And paintings by Alice Neel and Matisse.
Amy Bloom
#21. When one is in love one begins by deceiving one's self. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance." - Oscar Wilde
Ashton Cartwright
#22. Everyone says Oscar Wilde was a dandy, but he wasn't - he was an aesthete. He took pleasure in food and stuff like that. Dandyism is much more austere - much more Calvinistic, more neurotic - it oscillates between narcissism and neurosis.
Sebastian Horsley
#23. Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.'
Sarah Bernhardt
#24. There is no such thing as a heterosexual male, only men who haven't met Oscar Wilde yet.
Oscar Wilde
#25. I love physical comedy. I love Oscar Wilde, I love Shakespeare comedies, I love improv.
Elizabeth Banks
#26. No good deed goes unpunished - Oscar Wilde
Allen Mack
#27. A man like Wilde was not free to live out of the closet as a homosexual, and women in general were not able to be truly themselves; there was no place for a woman's voice to be heard or for her to express her sexuality.
Marisa Tomei
#28. So who's perfect? ... Washington had false teeth. Franklin was nearsighted. Mussolini had syphilis. Unpleasant things have been said about Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. Tchaikovsky had his problems, too. And Lincoln was constipated.
John O'Hara
#29. Looking at the poems of John Gray when I saw the tiniest rivulet of text meandering through the very largest meadow of margin, I suggested to Oscar Wilde that he should go a step further than these minor poets; he should publish a book all margin; full of beautiful, unwritten thoughts.
Ada Leverson
#30. Oscar Wilde said that "All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime," and then got sent off to Reading Gaol to reconsider and write ballads.
Mark Forsyth
#31. Were Wilde's panthers grateful or rebellious? Eventually, of course, one prefers a rebellious bedfellow. But it requires a degree of gratitude to get him into bed in the first place
Jamie O'Neill
#32. Reported as Oscar Wilde's last words on his death bed ...
This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has to go.
Oscar Wilde
#34. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. - Oscar Wilde
Greg Iles
#35. I went to drama school. I'm classically trained; I studied Shakespeare, blah blah blah. But I always preferred to do Oscar Wilde, or Shakespeare's comedies over his dramas.
Elizabeth Banks
#36. From beginning to end Wilde performed his life and continued to do so even after fame had taken the plot out of his own hands.
W. H. Auden
#37. Actually, I do like pink clothes, but it's not because I'm girly, it's because I'm the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde.
Mara Wilson
#38. I can lose you like that, if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay. - Adam Wilde, If I Stay
Gayle Forman
#39. What a lurid life Oscar Wilde does lead - so full of extraordinary incidents. What a chance for the memoir writers of the next century
Max Beerbohm
#41. I just finished 'Butter' for Weinstein, a comedy with this incredible cast - Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, Alicia Silverstone - all-star cast and it was a fun set to be on. I've gotten really lucky to get all these down-to-earth cast members. 'Butter' is about butter carving in Iowa.
Ashley Greene
#42. Oscar Wilde was suing the Marquis of Queensbury in 1895 for libel accusing Wilde of homosexuality
Counsel: Have you ever adored a young man madly?
Wilde: I have never given adoration to anyone except myself.
Oscar Wilde
#44. [Referring to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde] ... Will civilization never reach humane ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not understand and which hold forth for them no temptation? Did Jesus suffer in vain?
Frank Harris
#45. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless ... - Oscar Wilde
J.J. McAvoy
#46. As Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) pointed out, twilight 'is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.' Then again, maybe poetry's chief use is to inspire us to watch the sun go down.
Jessica Kerwin Jenkins
#47. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. - Oscar Wilde
Tonya Hurley
#48. Damn it all, MacMurrough, are you telling me you are an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort?'
'If you mean am I Irish, the answer is yes.
Jamie O'Neill
#49. The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff - I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.
Tom Hodgkinson
#50. As Oscar Wilde says, thirty-five is the perfect age for a woman, so much so that many women have decided to adopt it for the rest of their lives.
Helen Fielding
#51. I love Oscar Wilde, still the wittiest writer of anyone, dead or living.
Christopher Buckley
#52. As Oscar Wilde should have said, when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses.
Frederic Raphael
#53. Shit," he says helplessly. "No - piss," I say, like Oscar fucking Wilde.
Caitlin Moran
#54. Wilde's permanent celebrity belongs to literature, and only his transient notoriety to police news.
George Bernard Shaw
#55. When in Reading Gaol he told me that the warders in the dock had been gentle and kind, but the visit of the chaplain in his first prison began with these words:
'Mr. Wilde, did you have morning prayers in your house?'
'I am sorry ... I fear not.'
'You see where you are now!
Charles Ricketts
#56. You're a big boy," Ana observes, staring blankly into her cup. "You could have said no." "I stand with Oscar Wilde on the subject of temptation.
Don Winslow
#57. The part of [Oscar] Wilde was exceptionally important to me; the man, his achievements, his wisdom, but his downfall, his disgrace and the tragic and bitter end to it have always fascinated, appalled and attracted me since childhood. It was he who first in some measure vindicated my sexuality.
Stephen Fry
#58. Between Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Dorothy Parker, everything worth saying has already been said, and said better than i could ever say it
James Patterson
#59. It's certainly true that I was brought up in that British amateur tradition, the one which always held that if you were reasonably good at cricket, knew one or two Latin texts and a few zingy Oscar Wilde quotes for dinner parties, you were pretty much ready to go and run some outpost in Hindustan.
Damian Lewis
#60. Telling doesn't help me - it helps you. As Wilde says, It is the confession, not the priest, that gives absolution ...
John Geddes
#61. I did not expect to survive that long. Yet two years had gone by and I was not that much worse. In fact, things were going rather well for me and I had gotten engaged to a very nice girl, Jane Wilde. But in order to get married, I needed a job, and in order to get a job, I needed a Ph.D.
Stephen Hawking
#62. William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.
Kenneth Tynan
#63. The only thing in the world worse than being Oscar Wilde is not being Oscar Wilde.
Oscar Wilde
#64. [On Oscar Wilde:]
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
[Life Magazine, June 2, 1927]
Dorothy Parker
#65. I could see myself in a relationship with a girl; Olivia Wilde is so sexy she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hands. She's mesmerizing.
Megan Fox
#66. I was raised on the brothers Grimm, but my favorite fairy tales in the world are Oscar Wilde's - 'The Nightingale and the Rose,' 'The Selfish Giant.' The latter is probably my all-time favorite.
Denis O'Hare
#67. Knowledge had always been the most important weapon in all of this. [Hannah Wilde]
Stephen Lloyd Jones
#68. As Oscar Wilde once wrote, "Morality, like art, means drawing a line somewhere." The question is: where is the line?
Dan Ariely
#69. Some believe that as an icon the image of Oscar Wilde is too old and notorious
all right, not an icon, let him be our oriflamme.
Lara Biyuts
#70. Oscar Wilde said that the gods punish us in two ways: first, they don't give us what we want, then, they do. He forgot the third way: we finally see the cost of getting it.
Perry Brass
#71. Relevance, Wilde once explained, was a careless habit that should not be over-indulged.
Kim Newman
#72. The only words worth repeating are from the Old Testament or Oscar Wilde.
Barry Gifford
#73. Failure is only the name that we give to our mistakes.
-Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
#74. The truth is the truth. 'Rarely pure and never simple,' as Oscar Wilde would say.
Kami Garcia
#75. I remember when I posed as a customs officer so that I could meet Oscar Wilde. I said to him "Have you anything to declare?" He said "I have nothing to declare but my genius." I said "I'll put that down as nothing then shall I?" For I am the wittiest man on Earth.
Simon Munnery
#76. Oscar Wilde once quipped, "The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything and the young know everything.
Ian Mortimer
#78. My old dance teacher, Jimmy Wilde, a former European ballroom dancing champion, was so sophisticated.
Anton Du Beke
#79. Oh bless Speranza, for giving her son such a preposterous name as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.
Mary Ann Shaffer
#80. Oscar Wilde may have quipped that one can "never be overdressed or overeducated," but Wilde did not live in our era of overeducated baristas.
Usman W. Chohan
#81. Oscar Wilde turned the world upside down and was able to laugh at it, and hopefully by the time I'm 120 and worn out, that's what I will achieve. I love being alive so much.
John Lydon
#82. History only existed in the human mind, subject to endless revision. 'each man kills the thing he loves'-Oscar Wilde. You kill it before it kills you, but he was wrong. you killed it by accident. thinking you were doing something else. shattering, when all you wanted to do was keep it safe.
Janet Fitch
#83. truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.' " "More Oscar Wilde?" "Galileo, the father of modern astronomy. Another
Kami Garcia
#84. ...Most attackers aren't going to be dissuaded by a witty remark."
"That's profiling," said Mattheus. "Maybe they're Oscar Wilde fans."
"He did have great clothes."
"Proving that stereotypes can span centuries.
Amy Fecteau
#85. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, You wouldn't care about what other people thought about you if you realized how seldom they actually did.
Maria Semple
#86. 'He's the most charming man. He's the Oscar Wilde of our time. I only had one moment with him in that film and it's a great source of regret. I love spending time with him. He's always very open and effusive. His interest in you is genuine.'
Russell Crowe
#87. Whether it's Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde, they're brilliant with genius bon mots. Of course, I find them extraordinary.
Duncan Roy
#88. Oscar Wilde once defined a gentleman as one who never insulted somebody else accidentally.
Douglas Wilson
#89. Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.
Orhan Pamuk
#90. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. - Oscar Wilde (Chuck Palahniuk - Pygmy)
Oscar Wilde
#91. The world you see is seen by you alone. What entices you and what repels you, what strengthens you and what weakens you, is part of a pattern that no one else shares. Therefore, as Mr. Wilde said, no two people can perceive the same "truth," because each person's perspective is different.
Marcus Buckingham
#92. Once upon a time, Isola Wilde was watching late-night television with her eldest brother, Alejandro, when Channel 12 broadcast a live suicide.
Allyse Near
#93. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - 'It destroys everything around it, except itself.'
Stephen Fry
#94. Oscar Wilde's "beautiful untrue things" that save the imagination from falling into "careless habits of accuracy.
Harold Bloom
#95. Oscar Wilde wrote, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is getting what one wants, and the other is not getting it." When
Esther Perel
#96. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. - OSCAR WILDE
Timothy Ferriss
#97. Man know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
-Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
#98. Oscar Wilde summed up the indignation: A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Leslie Jamison
#99. Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist, and that's all. I don't know if he's right, but I do know that I spend a long time existing, and now, I intend to live.
Robyn Schneider
#100. Wit isn't a useful instrument of defense; it may make a short-run appeal, but it creates a backlash- one saw this in the Hiss case and the Oppenheimer hearings; certainly one saw it in the trial of Oscar Wilde.
Diana Trilling
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
