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1
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
Oscar Wilde
Smoking
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2
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
Dream
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3
A kiss may ruin a human life.
Oscar Wilde
Kisses and Kissing
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4
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde
Sincerity
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5
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Oscar Wilde
Men and Women
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6
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde
Enemies
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7
A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.
Oscar Wilde
Moralists
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8
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
Oscar Wilde
Faces
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9
A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
Oscar Wilde
Confession
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10
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
Oscar Wilde
Ideals and Idealism
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11
A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people's toes.
Oscar Wilde
Sensitivity
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12
A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Oscar Wilde
Pessimism
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13
A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
Oscar Wilde
Poetry and Poets
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14
A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
Oscar Wilde
Feeling
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15
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Oscar Wilde
Truth
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16
A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.
Oscar Wilde
Gentlemen
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17
Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.
Oscar Wilde
Taste
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18
Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde
Action
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19
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
Oscar Wilde
Death and Dying
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20
All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde
Arts and Artists
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21
All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.
Oscar Wilde
Charm
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22
All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death.
Oscar Wilde
Trials
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23
Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
Forgiveness
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24
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
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25
Ambition is the last refuge of failure.
Oscar Wilde
Ambition
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26
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
Oscar Wilde
Uncategorised
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27
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde
United States of America
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28
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Oscar Wilde
United States of America
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29
An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
Oscar Wilde
Friends and Friendship
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30
An ordinary man away from home giving advice.
Oscar Wilde
Experts
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31
And now, I am dying beyond my means. (Said while sipping champagne on his deathbed.)
Oscar Wilde
Famous last words
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32
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, none knew so well as I: for he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.
Oscar Wilde
Hypocrisy
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33
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Oscar Wilde
Temptation
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34
Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
Oscar Wilde
History and Historians
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35
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.
Oscar Wilde
Literature
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36
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde
Argument
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37
Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.
Oscar Wilde
Academia
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38
Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices.
Oscar Wilde
Arts and Artists
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39
As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life. Of course they only say it behind my back.
Oscar Wilde
Wickedness
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40
As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.
Oscar Wilde
Beggars
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41
As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.
Oscar Wilde
Poverty and The Poor
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42
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
Oscar Wilde
Daughter
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43
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have it's fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde
War
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44
As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.
Oscar Wilde
Lies and Lying
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45
Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.
Oscar Wilde
Arts and Artists
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46
Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.
Oscar Wilde
Arts and Artists
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47
Bad manners make a journalist.
Oscar Wilde
Journalism and Journalists
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48
Beauty is a form of genius -- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Oscar Wilde
Beauty
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49
Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
Oscar Wilde
Dictators and Dictatorship
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50
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Oscar Wilde
Men and Women
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51
By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful.
Oscar Wilde
Bachelor
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52
Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Oscar Wilde
Charity
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53
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
Children
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54
Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.
Oscar Wilde
Civilization
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55
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
Consistency
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56
Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.
Oscar Wilde
Conversation
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57
Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.
Oscar Wilde
Cries and Crying
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58
Cultivated leisure is the aim of man.
Oscar Wilde
Leisure
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59
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
Democracy
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60
Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things.
Oscar Wilde
Despotism
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61
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
Oscar Wilde
Discontent
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62
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
Oscar Wilde
Obedience
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63
Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to.
Oscar Wilde
Temptation
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64
Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.
Oscar Wilde
Dullness
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65
Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.
Oscar Wilde
Career
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66
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
Education
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67
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.
Oscar Wilde
Disciple
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68
Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
Oscar Wilde
Wealth
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69
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde
Painters and Painting
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70
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
Oscar Wilde
Woman
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71
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Oscar Wilde
Teachers and Teaching
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72
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
Oscar Wilde
Examinations
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73
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Oscar Wilde
Experience
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74
Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.
Oscar Wilde
Mistakes
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75
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde
Fashion
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76
Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.
Oscar Wilde
Fashion
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77
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Oscar Wilde
Father
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78
Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.
Oscar Wilde
Children
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79
Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.
Oscar Wilde
Flower
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80
For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners.
Oscar Wilde
Models and Modeling
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81
For he who lives more lives than one: More deaths than one must die.
Oscar Wilde
Death and Dying
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82
For his mourners will be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.
Oscar Wilde
Outcasts
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83
Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.
Oscar Wilde
Biography
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84
Frank Harris has been received in all the great houses -- once!
Oscar Wilde
Guests
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85
From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.
Oscar Wilde
Writers and Writing
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86
Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.
Oscar Wilde
Genius
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87
Good Americans when they die, go to Paris.
Oscar Wilde
United States of America
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88
Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. They a
Oscar Wilde
Respectability
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89
Good taste is the excuse I have given for leading such a bad life.
Oscar Wilde
Taste
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90
Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Oscar Wilde
Scandal
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91
He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.
Oscar Wilde
Color
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92
He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
Oscar Wilde
Silence
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93
He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about.
Oscar Wilde
Romance and Romanticism
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94
He rides in the row at ten o clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don't call that leading an idle life, do you?
Oscar Wilde
Riches
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95
He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays.
Oscar Wilde
Politicians and Politics
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96
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
Oscar Wilde
Present
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97
He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
Oscar Wilde
Punctuality
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98
He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone.
Oscar Wilde
Aphorisms and Epigrams
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99
His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.
Oscar Wilde
Writers and Writing
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100
How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.
Oscar Wilde
Hypocrisy
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