Martin Constable > Martin's Quotes

“It's beauty that captures your attention; personality that captures your heart..”
― Oscar Wilde

“Only the shallow know themselves”
― oscar wilde

“LORD ILLINGWORTH: The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.
MRS ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it comes into existence.”
― Oscar Wilde

“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money”
― Oscar Wilde

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”
― Oscar Wilde

“My existence is a scandal”
― Oscar Wilde

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories. ”
― Oscar Wilde

“The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I think it's very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”
― Oscar Wilde

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Ah, Robbie, when we are dead and buried in our porphyry tombs, and the trumpet of the Last Judgement is sounded, I shall turn and whisper to you, 'Robbie, Robbie, let us pretend we do not hear it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The truths of metaphysics are the truths of masks.”
― Oscar Wilde, Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems

“I am getting rather astonishing in my Italian conversation. I believe I talk a mixture of Dante and the worst modern slang.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

“A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Everyone may not be good, but there's always something good in everyone. Never judge anyone shortly because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
― Oscar Wilde, Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword”
― Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

“Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Ugh!' snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the brushwood with his tail between his legs, 'this is perfectly monstrous weather. Why doesn't the Government look to it?”
― Oscar Wilde, The Star-Child and Other Tales

“The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults
and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of
clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them
knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all
the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect,
who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands,
or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what use
is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All
lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that.
It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they
are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols
merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to
come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid
that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.”
― Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

“My life-my whole life- take it, and do with it what you will. I love you-love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly,madly!

You didn't know it then-you know it now.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“What a silly thing love is!' said the student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to philosophy and study metaphysics.'
So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales