Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Quotes

• Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.

• The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

• Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons.

• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

• It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal.

• Crying is the refuge of plain women, but the ruin of pretty ones.

• In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.

• The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything.

• To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

• There are many things that we would throw away, if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

• I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.

• I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

• It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

• Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

• The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

• Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

• Why was I born with such contemporaries?

• Only the shallow know themselves.

• The truth is rarely pure and never simple.