Oscar Wilde
Ireland
16 Oct 1854 // 30 Nov 1900
Playwright / Novelist / Poet
16 Oct 1854 // 30 Nov 1900
Playwright / Novelist / Poet
Quotes
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The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands
The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates
The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame
The basis of optimism is sheer terror
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays