"Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.Vice and virtue are the artist’s materials for an art. From the point of view of form, th...
Hearts Live By Being Wounded
More Oscar Wilde quotes
"The pure and simple truth is, the truth is never pure and simple.
"No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpa...
"I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.
"The heart was made to be broken.
"[Letter to William Ward, 11 July 1878]Dear Boy, Why don’t you write to me? I don’t know what has become of you.As for me I am ruined. The law suit is ...
"I have been right, Basil, haven’t I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare’s plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak ...
"She...can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it.
"Who, being loved, is poor?
"A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.
"Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful th...
"You came to me to learn the Pleasure of Life and the Pleasure of Art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, the meaning of S...
"Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.
"it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing.