"Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level."

"I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful."

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

"It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free."

"I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting."

"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

"To influence a person is to give him one's own soul."

"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."

"Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it."

"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."

"In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich makes slaves of the poor."

"In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it."

"Marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men disagree."

"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

"Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless."

"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly."

"Only the shallow know themselves."

"There is no sin except stupidity."

"Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known."

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."

"I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about."

"Art, even the art of fullest scope and widest vision, can never really show us the external world. All that it shows us is our own soul, the one world of which we have any real cognisance. And the soul itself, the soul of each one of us, is to each one of us a mystery. It hides in the dark and broods, and consciousness cannot tell us of its workings. Consciousness, indeed, is quite inadequate to explain the contents of personality. It is Art, and Art only, that reveals us to ourselves."

"No good deed goes unpunished."

"It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world."

"One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged."

"The tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self denial."

"The 19thc hatred of Realism is Caliban's enraged reaction to seeing his own face in the mirror. The 19thc rejection of Romanticism is Caliban's fury at not seeing his face reflected in the mirror."

"Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you."

"Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one's prejudices."

"Experience is a question of instinct about life."

"What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine."

"And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to life."

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

"Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out."

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"To most of us the real life is the life we do not lead."

"Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes."

"To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."

"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography."

"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. " A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."

"A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it."

"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself."

"Try as we may we cannot get behind things to the reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in things apart from their appearances."

"Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it."

"She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious."

"The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy."

"The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault."

"They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about."