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Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistic...more

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Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

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That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us qu...more

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It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

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If a woman cannot make her mistakes charming, she is only a female.

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Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.

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I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.

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Most people are boring and stupid.

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But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.

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There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating- people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

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Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reaso...more

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[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 ...more

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If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

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One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

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It would be unfair to expect other people to be as brilliant as oneself.