Wilde Quotes
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you one of the most voluminous and diverse collections of quotes - from the writer Oscar Wilde .
I think that few will agree with all of his statements, but they are good for thinking .
Quotes are summarized by topic: human manifestations, women and men, life, marriage, people, life ethics, literature and art, about oneself, society, sin, women, religion, love, friendship, reality, truth and lies, beauty, soul, selfishness, education, old age and death, time, success, children and parents, conscience, fashion, good intentions.
About human manifestations
To be natural, you need to be able to pretend.
People always laugh at their tragedies - that's the only way to bear them.
People always destroy what they love most.
Doing nothing is one of the hardest things to do, the most challenging and the most intellectual.
Punctuality is the thief of time.
We cannot stand people with the same shortcomings as us.
Optimism is based on pure fear.
Loyalty in love, like consistency and immutability of thoughts, is simply proof of powerlessness.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Only superficial people do not judge by appearance.
Whenever a person commits stupidity, he does it from the most noble motives.
Naturalness is just a pose, and also the most annoying one I know.
To be good means to live in harmony with yourself.
How easy it is to convert others to your faith, and how difficult it is to convert yourself.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, but absolute sincerity is simply fatal.
You love everyone, and loving everyone means loving no one. You are equally indifferent to everyone.
The difference between a whim and eternal love is that the whim lasts a little longer.
The most ordinary trifle acquires amazing interest as soon as you begin to hide it from people.
There is a kind of voluptuousness in self-flagellation. And when we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has the right to blame us anymore.
A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything, but does not know the value.
It's always nice not to arrive where you are expected.
About women and men
Women exist to be loved, not to be understood.
When a man does exactly what a woman expects from him, he doesn’t gain much in her eyes. You always need to do things that a woman cannot expect, and say things that she cannot understand.
Women love flaws. If there are a fair amount of these shortcomings, they are ready to forgive us everything, even our intelligence.
Women treat us men the same way humanity treats their gods: they worship us and bother us, constantly demanding something.
Men can be analyzed and discussed, but women can only be adored.
With bad women you don’t know peace, but with good women you feel bored.
Women are the embodiment of the victory of matter over spirit - just as men are the embodiment of the victory of spirit over morality.
A man who reads morals is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who reads morals is certainly an ugly woman.
A woman can change a man in one way: to cause him so much harm that he completely loses his taste for life.
Women endure grief more easily than men, that’s how they are created! They live only by feelings, and are occupied only with them.
There is something positively bestial in the calm nature of men.
Women inspire us to create masterpieces, but they prevent our inspiration from being realized.
The female soul lies in beauty, just as the male soul lies in strength. If both could be united in one person, we would have the ideal of art, which people have been dreaming about since it existed.
The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden... and ends with the apocalypse.
By the way, quotes about women and quotes about men
About life
We're all in the gutter, but some are looking at the stars.
Life is too important to talk about it seriously.
There is nothing that cannot be hoped for. Life is hope.
The soul is born old, but becomes ever younger. This is a comedy of life. The body is born young and ages. And this is a tragedy.
The whole world is a stage, but the troupe is no good.
The purpose of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in its entirety is what we live for.
Life is never fair. For most of us, it's probably better this way.
Success accompanies the strong, failure befalls the weak. That's all.
There are only two tragedies possible in life: the first is not getting what you dream of, the second is getting it. The second is worse, it is truly a tragedy!
When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.
In the real world of facts, sinners are not punished and the righteous are not rewarded.
In our age, only useless things are necessary for a person.
In our age, people read too much, which prevents them from being wise, and they think too much, and this prevents them from being beautiful.
Being in society is simply boring. And to be outside society is already a tragedy.
The burdens of our day are too heavy for man to bear alone, and the pain of the world is too deep for man to bear alone.
As soon as the cannibals begin to threaten death from exhaustion, God, in his infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary.
Only that life that has stopped in its development can be considered broken.
By the way, quotes about life
About marriage
The strongest foundation for marriage is mutual misunderstanding.
How can a woman be happy with a man who stubbornly wants to see her as a rational being?
The love of a married woman is a great thing. Married men never dreamed of this.
Our husbands don't value anything about us. For this you have to turn to others.
The main harm of marriage is that it eradicates selfishness from a person. And unselfish people are colorless, they lose their individuality.
Twenty years of love makes a woman a wreck; Twenty years of marriage give it the appearance of a public building.
Loyalty! It contains the greed of the owner. We would willingly give up many things if it were not for the fear that someone else would pick it up.
Men marry out of boredom, women out of curiosity. Both are disappointed.
Ugly women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful people have no time for that; they are jealous of strangers.
By the way, quotes about weddings
About people
It makes no sense to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or stupid.
Positive people get on your nerves, bad people get on your imagination.
The world is divided into two classes - some believe in the incredible, others do the impossible.
Most of us are not us. Our thoughts are other people's judgments; our life is mimicry; our passions - quote!
What is true in a person’s life is not his deeds, but the legends that surround him. Legends should never be destroyed. Through them we can vaguely see the person's true face.
Only empty people know themselves.
The Lord, when creating man, somewhat overestimated his strength.
It is precisely those passions, the nature of which we misunderstand, that dominate us most powerfully. And the weakest of all are feelings whose origin is clear to us.
Other people's dramas are always unbearably banal.
Only intellect ennobles a person.
By the way, quotes about people
About life ethics
Be yourself, the rest of the roles are taken.
The impossible is the only thing that makes sense to do.
No one can teach you what you really need to know.
It’s not a pity to pay anything for every new unknown sensation.
Everything can be survived except death; everything can be transferred except a good reputation.
The only thing you will never regret is our mistakes and delusions.
Moderation is a fatal quality. Only extremes lead to success.
When people immediately agree with me, I feel like I’m wrong.
A person must absorb the colors of life, but never remember the details. The details are always banal.
The biggest mysteries lie in what we see, not in what is hidden from our eyes.
In everything that people take seriously, you need to see the comic side of things.
After a good dinner, you can forgive anyone, even your relatives.
About literature and art
A poet can tolerate anything except a typo.
Art is the most expressive form of individualism known.
Art is a mirror that reflects whoever looks into it, and not life at all.
In America, in the Rocky Mountains, I saw the only reasonable method of artistic criticism. There was a sign above the piano in the bar: “Don’t shoot the pianist—he’s doing the best he can.”
Life is too caustic. She destroys art.
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its shame.
I can't stand vulgar realism in literature. A person who calls a shovel a shovel should be forced to work with it - that's all he's good for.
The highest as well as the lowest form of criticism is a form of autobiography.
Music gives us our own past.
The foundation of literary friendship is the exchange of poisoned glasses.
About Me
I always surprise myself. This is the only thing worth living for.
I have unpretentious taste: the best is enough for me.
I don't really want to know what people say behind my back. This flatters me too much.
I like to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.
I love men with a future and women with a past.
I can resist everything except temptation.
To regain my youth, I am ready to do anything - just not get up early, not do gymnastics and not be a useful member of society.
When I am released, I will simply move from one prison to another.
It’s either me or that disgusting floral wallpaper.
I am dying as I lived - beyond my means.
About society
On the ancient Greek portal of the ancient world it was written: know yourself. On the portal of the modern world it will be written: be yourself.
Humanism is unnatural, because it helps the most insignificant to survive.
Society often forgives the criminal. But not a dreamer.
Public opinion triumphs where thought slumbers.
Society has a truly insatiable curiosity about everything that does not deserve curiosity.
There are three types of despots. The first terrorizes the body. The second terrorizes the soul. The third is equal parts body and soul. The first is called Prince, the second is called Pope, the third is People.
About sin
There is only one sin - stupidity.
A sin committed once with a shudder, we repeat in life many times - but with pleasure.
Every desire that we try to suppress ferments in our soul and poisons us. And having sinned, a person gets rid of the attraction to sin, for fulfillment is the path to purification. Afterwards, only memories of pleasure and the voluptuousness of repentance remain. The only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it.
Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.
About women
If a woman wears a lot of blush and very little dress, this is a sign of desperation.
For women, the best method of defense is attack, and the best method of attack is sudden and inexplicable retreat.
If you want to know what a woman really thinks, look at her, but don't listen.
Only a truly good woman can do a truly stupid thing.
A woman has amazing intuition: she can guess everything except the most obvious.
You should never trust a woman who tells you her age. The woman who said this can say anything.
About religion
Religion is a very common surrogate for faith.
Truths of faith are believed not because they are reasonable, but because they are often repeated.
A belief does not become true just because someone dies for it.
Skepticism is the beginning of faith.
A prayer must remain unanswered, otherwise it ceases to be a prayer and becomes a correspondence.
Atheism needs religion no less than faith.
By the way, quotes about religion
About love
Falling in love begins with a person deceiving himself, and ends with him deceiving another.
Those who are faithful in love only have access to its banal essence. The tragedy of love is experienced only by those who cheat.
A man can be happy with any woman - provided that he does not love her.
Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women dream of being a man's last romance.
By the way, quotes about love
About friendship
Knowing your friends is an extremely dangerous thing.
Friendship between a man and a woman is impossible. Passion, enmity, adoration, love - just not friendship.
Laughter is a good start to friendship, and laughter is a good way to end it.
For a person who has no enemies, they are successfully replaced by friends who secretly hate him.
By the way, quotes about friendship
About reality
Only words give reality to phenomena.
To define means to limit.
A thing is what can be seen in it.
Nature, of course, has good intentions, but, as Aristotle once said, she is not able to bring them to life.
About truth and lies
Lies are other people's truths.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it.
A person is very embarrassed when he speaks on his own behalf. Give him a mask and he will tell you the whole truth.
By the way, quotes about truth and quotes about lies
About beauty
Beauty is superior to genius because it does not require understanding.
The true secret of happiness is the search for beauty.
Behind the beautiful there is always some tragedy hidden. For the most humble flower to bloom, the worlds must undergo birth pangs.
By the way, quotes about beauty
About the soul
The beauty of the soul grows to gain the gift of seeing God.
Heal your soul with sensations, and let your soul heal sensations.
Those who see the difference between soul and body have neither body nor soul.
By the way, quotes about the soul
About selfishness
Self-love is the beginning of a romance that lasts a lifetime.
Selfishness does not mean living the way you want, it is a requirement for others to live the way you want.
About education
Education is a wonderful thing, but you should remember at least from time to time that nothing that really needs to be known can be taught.
Now good upbringing is just a hindrance. It blocks out too much.
By the way, quotes about education
About old age and death
The tragedy of old age is not that you are old, but that you still consider yourself young.
To regain youth, you just have to repeat all its follies.
Sometimes what we consider dead does not want to die for a long time.
About the time
Time is a waste of money.
The beauty of the past is that it is the past.
It's hard to escape the future.
By the way, quotes about time
About success
Great success always requires some unscrupulousness in funds.
Ambition is the last refuge of losers.
By the way, quotes about success
About children and parents
Children begin with love for their parents. As they grow up, they begin to judge them. Sometimes they forgive them.
Motherhood is a fact. Fatherhood is an opinion.
By the way, quotes about children
About conscience
Conscience is the official name for cowardice.
Conscience makes us all selfish.
About fashion
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we are forced to change it every six months.
We consider what we wear to be fashionable and what others wear to be unfashionable.
About good intentions
Good intentions are checks that people write to a bank where they don't have a checking account.
Good intentions are simply futile attempts to go against nature.
About miscellaneous
Arguing is so vulgar. After all, in a decent society they always adhere to the same opinion
A thought that is not dangerous does not deserve to be called a thought.
Fate does not send us messengers - for this it is wise enough or cruel enough.
People call their mistakes experience.
Patriotism is a great madness.
Murder is always a miss. You should never do anything that you can't chat with people about after dinner.
The concept of good and evil is accessible only to those who are deprived of all other concepts.
Work is the last refuge of those who can’t do anything else.
What a beautiful moon today! - Yes, but if you had seen her before the war...
Nothing is impossible in Russia except reforms.
Oscar Wilde's quotes are aesthetic, provocative , and at the same time smart and vital. He put his nonconformist ideas into practice, which ultimately led to tragedy. It turned out to be difficult for the “boy star” to live in his own special world without coming into conflict with society.
Quotes about Oscar Wilde
- B. Shaw: It was a well-made life in the Scribe sense, as simple as that of Des Grieux, Manon Lescaut's lover; but she achieved even more by discarding Manon and making Des Grieux the only hero in love with himself. (by the way, quotes from Bernard Shaw)
- W. Yeats: The dinner table made Wilde the greatest storyteller of his time.
- A.K. Doyle: I thought then, and I still think now, that the monstrous evolution that destroyed him was pathological in nature, and should have been dealt with in a hospital rather than in a police station. (by the way, Sherlock Holmes quotes)
- A. Maurois: Thanks to Wilde, the British know how to turn paradoxes into banalities. (by the way, quotes from Andre Maurois)
- K. Balmont: He was a brilliantly gifted poet. He carried out all his “I want!” to the point of excessive capriciousness, but, like all true players, at the decisive moment he did not fully calculate his chances.
- J. Cocteau: Oscar Wilde paid dearly for being Oscar Wilde. But being Oscar Wilde is the height of luxury.
- W. Auden: From the very beginning, Wilde directed his life and continued to do so even when fate tore all the threads out of his hands.
- H.L. Borges: The simple and obvious fact is that Wilde's ideas are most often correct.
Next, you can move on to the following collections of quotes:
- Shakespeare quotes
- Twain quotes
- Bradbury quotes
- Churchill quotes
- Coco Chanel quotes
- Saint-Exupery quotes
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About a tight-fitting velvet camisole, knee-length trousers and two pairs of gray silk stockings
“Dear Colonel Morse, please go to a good costume designer (theater) and order for me (without mentioning my name) two suits for daytime and perhaps evening performances. They should be beautiful: a kind of tight-fitting velvet camisole with large, flower-patterned sleeves and a round ruffled cambric collar peeking out from under the standing collar. I am sending you a drawing and measurements. The suits should be waiting for me in Chicago and ready for my appearance there on Saturday afternoon - at least the black one. Any good costume designer will understand what I need: something in the style of Francis I's clothing, only with short knee-length pants instead of long, tight leggings. Also get me two pairs of gray silk stockings to match the gray mousey velvet. The sleeves should be, if not velvet, then plush, decorated with large floral patterns. They will make a big sensation."
From a letter to Colonel Morse. St. Louis, Missouri. February 26, 1882
Oscar Wilde. New York, 1882 British Library
In the autumn of 1881, Wilde received an offer from producer Richard D'Oyly Carte to go to America on a lecture tour. By that time, Wilde had already become famous in England as the standard-bearer of aestheticism. Aestheticism is a movement in art that proclaims the predominance of beautiful form over content, over pragmatic and ethical considerations (“art for art’s sake”), and Carte—perhaps at the instigation of the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. — decided to introduce Americans to new trends in beauty in art and everyday life. And at the same time, advertise the New York production of the comic opera “Patience”: Wilde was the easily recognizable prototype of one of the characters. The topics of his lectures in America were "The English Renaissance", "The Beautiful Dwelling" and "The Decorative Arts". When talking about his ideas for the costume, he demonstrated these ideas, so to speak, on himself.
About books
“I’m terrified for myself too - because I’ll be released without a single book. One hope for friends... You know what authors I need: Flaubert, Stevenson, Baudelaire, Maeterlinck, Dumas the Father, Keats, Marlowe, Chatterton, Coleridge, Anatole France, Gautier, Dante and literature about him, Goethe and about him, and so on Further. I would be incredibly happy if some of this met me after my release - maybe there will be friends who won’t refuse.”
From a letter to Robert Ross. Her Majesty's Prison, Reading. April 6, 1897
Wilde served his sentence first in London prisons (Pentonville and Wandsworth), and then in Reading, in the southeast of England. The conclusion was solitary. Wilde endured it very hard. “There are three types of torture legalized in English prisons,” he wrote to the Daily Chronicle after his release. - Hunger. Insomnia. Disease". However, towards the end of his term, he began to come to life. In a letter to Ross dated April 1, he writes about his gratitude to the new warden of Reading prison, who softened his regime, allowed him to read a lot and write that very letter “De Profundis”. When thinking about going free, he was worried about more than just reading. “Finally, I would be very grateful to Mor Eidy (1858–1942) - writer and translator, friend of Wilde, if he wrote to those people who, after my arrest, pawned or sold my fur coat, and asked them where it could be here now, because I need to find him and bring him back. I haven’t parted with it for twelve years, it has traveled with me all over America, I came to all the premieres of my plays in it, it knows me like a pie, and I really need it,” he wrote to Ross on April 1 of the same year.
About male attractiveness
“My beloved boy, your sonnet is charming, and it’s simply a miracle that those scarlet lips of yours, like rose petals, are created for the music of singing no less than for the madness of kissing. Your slender golden soul lives between passion and poetry. I know: in the Greek era you were Hyacinth, whom Apollo loved so madly.”
From a letter to Alfred Douglas We follow the tradition of Russian writing, although Alfred Douglas would be more accurate (Note by Leonid Motylev).. Presumably January 1893
Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas. 1893 British Library
Alfred Douglas (1870–1945) publicized his relationship with Wilde, which angered Douglas's father, the influential Marquess of Queensberry (1844–1900), known for his militant temperament. He began to pursue Wilde. Douglas's defiant behavior, outbursts of rage towards his father - all this added fuel to the fire and ultimately led to a trial (more on this later), at which Wilde was accused of "indecent behavior" with corrupt young men. No charges were brought against Douglas. Wilde’s long message from prison is addressed to him, entitled “De Profundis” “From the Depths” (lat.), where he confesses his love to Douglas, blames him for what happened, writes about his repentance and humility, but at the same time proudly declares, that was a symbol of the art and culture of his century.
On the uselessness of art
“If contemplation of a work of art stimulates some kind of activity, this means that either the work is very mediocre, or the contemplator was unable to appreciate it in all its artistic completeness. A work of art is useless, just like a flower is useless. After all, a flower blooms for its own pleasure. We get pleasure the moment we admire it. That's all that can be said about our attitude towards flowers. Of course, a person can sell a flower and thereby benefit from it, but this has nothing to do with the flower. This does not change its essence. This is something random, unrelated to him.”
From a letter to Ernest Bernulf Clegg. London. Probably April 1891
Proclaiming, according to the canons of aestheticism, the uselessness of art, Wilde at the same time introduced a lot of art into the furnishings of his house on Tite Street, from where this letter was sent, and into his clothing and appearance. Richard Ellman, based on the testimony of contemporaries, describes in detail the interior of his “Beautiful Dwelling”: “... a library decorated in a style that some called Turkish, others - Moorish, others - North African. Above the doorway and along the walls of the room there was an architrave of massive beams, on which Shelley’s words were inscribed in gold, red and blue ... "
Jokes about Oscar Wilde
Imaginary or real statements of the famous writer with which he reacted to admiration, doubt and skepticism
About Catholicism and the charm of Rome
“If I could hope that the Catholic faith would awaken in me some seriousness and purity, I would convert to it if only for pleasure, even if I had no more compelling reasons for doing so. But there is little hope for this, and to convert to Catholicism means to reject and sacrifice my two great deities - Money and Ambition. And at the same time, I am sometimes so unhappy, depressed and restless that in some desperately melancholy mood I will seek refuge in the Roman Catholic Church, which simply enchants me with its charm. I hope that now, being in the Holy City, you have awakened and dispelled the Egyptian darkness that blinded you. Be touched, admire it, feel the enormous charm of the church, its supreme beauty and spirituality, give free rein and space to all sides of your nature. <…> I won’t bother you with theology, but I’ll just say: if you feel the charm of Rome, it will give me the greatest pleasure. Then I’ll probably make up my mind.”
From a letter to William Ward. Oxford. February-March 1877
Oscar Wilde in Rome. 1900 National Portrait Gallery, London
Wilde was born in a predominantly Catholic Ireland, but into a Protestant family. His father was a famous physician, author of books about Ireland, his mother was a poet and an ardent supporter of the country's independence. Throughout his life, Wilde periodically flared up interest in Catholicism. At Oxford, as his biographer Richard Ellman writes, Richard Ellman (1918–1987), an American literary critic, historian, biographer, worked for twenty years on a biography of Oscar Wilde and received a Pulitzer Prize for it. The impetus for the church may have been an infection with syphilis. from a prostitute and the accompanying feeling of sin. At that time they tried to treat syphilis with mercury, which darkened the teeth, and Wilde, who attached great importance to his appearance, acquired the habit of covering his mouth with his hand when talking. He never became a Catholic; echoes of his experiences are heard in The Picture of Dorian Gray:
“At one time in London they said that Dorian intended to convert to Catholicism. Indeed, he always liked the ritualism of the Catholic religion very much. <…> However, Dorian understood that to officially accept one or another dogma or creed would mean putting some kind of limit on his mental development, and he never made such a mistake... <...> ...all theories, all teachings about life were for Dorian is nothing compared to life itself.”
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James Joyce and the novel "Ulysses"
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About the premonition of collapse
“My dear Bobby, something happened after we met. Bosie's Father Alfred Douglas's pet nickname. left a card with a terrible inscription at my club. Now I see no other way out but to initiate criminal prosecution. This man seems to have ruined my entire life. The ivory tower is attacked by a low creature. My life is splashed out in the sand."
From a letter to Robert Ross. London, Avondale Hotel. February 28, 1895
Caricature of Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas "Dreams of Decadence on Cherwell". 1893 Wikimedia Commons
On February 28, the doorman of the Albemarle Club gave Wilde a card left by the Marquess of Queensberry ten days earlier. The card read: “To Oscar Wilde posing Sodomite.” (that's right, with grammatical errors). Wilde brought a libel case, which he lost. With this action he incurred legal charges of immorality and was later sentenced to two years in prison.
On the decision to stay in England
“I decided to stay: it will be nobler and more beautiful. We couldn't be together anyway. I didn't want to be called a coward or a deserter. Living under someone else’s name, changing your appearance, hiding - all this is not for me, to whom you were revealed on that mountainous height where beauty is transformed.”
From a letter to Alfred Douglas. London. May 20, 1895
The trial of Oscar Wilde. Drawing from the Police News newspaper of April 20, 1895 British Library
Before the decisive trial, Wilde’s friends persistently persuaded him to leave the country, offering escape options (including such exotic ones as escaping on a rented yacht), but he stubbornly refused. The motives are clear from the above passage.
About the reunion
“If they begin to condemn me for returning to Bosie, tell them that he offered me love and that I, in my loneliness and shame, after three months of struggle with the disgusting philistine world, quite naturally, did not reject it. Of course, with him I will often be unhappy, but despite this, I love him; The mere fact that he ruined my life makes me love him.”
From a letter to Robert Ross. Naples. September 21, 1897
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Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas at breakfast. Neighborhood of Dieppe, 1898 British Library
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First edition of Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol with a dedicatory inscription to Rowland Fothergill. 1898 Christie's
After his release, Wilde immediately left England and lived alternately in France and Italy. With Douglas they came together and then diverged; both were experiencing severe financial difficulties. “For four months Bozi bombarded me with letters, offering me ‘shelter’. He promised me love, gratitude, care, promised that I would not need anything. Finally I gave in; but, meeting him in Aix on the way to Naples, I saw that he had neither money nor plans and that he had completely forgotten all his promises. He imagined that I was able to get money for both of us. I actually got 120 pounds. Bozi lived on them without any worries. But when I demanded his share from him, he immediately became terrible, angry, base and stingy in everything that did not concern his own pleasures, and when my money ran out, he left,” Wilde wrote to Ross from Paris on March 2, 1898 of the year. The only literary text that Wilde wrote after leaving prison was the poetic “Ballad of Reading Gaol.” In February 1898 it was published in England as a separate book. Instead of the author's last name, his prison number appeared on the cover - C. 3. 3. The text was very successful and was republished several times in a short time. In addition to the ballad, two long letters from Wilde to the Daily Chronicle were published, where he advocated for easier prison conditions and stood up for a warden who was fired for being too lenient towards a juvenile prisoner.
