Top 500 Oscar Wilde Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”

— Oscar Wilde

402. “I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself. Sometimes I am so clever I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”

— Oscar Wilde

403. “Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.”

— Oscar Wilde

404. “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

— Oscar Wilde

405. “Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.”

— Oscar Wilde

406. “The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language.”

— Oscar Wilde

407. “There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.”

— Oscar Wilde

408. “Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.”

— Oscar Wilde

409. “The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”

— Oscar Wilde

410. “I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.”

— Oscar Wilde

411. “The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”

— Oscar Wilde

412. “Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”

— Oscar Wilde

413. “The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”

— Oscar Wilde

414. “I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.”

— Oscar Wilde

415. “Men know life too early. Women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women.”

— Oscar Wilde

416. “I have learned this: it is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.”

— Oscar Wilde

417. “Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.”

— Oscar Wilde

418. “I am always late on principle, my principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.”

— Oscar Wilde

419. “The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.”

— Oscar Wilde

420. “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

— Oscar Wilde

421. “Travel ennobles the spirit and does away with our prejudices.”

— Oscar Wilde

422. “Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.”

— Oscar Wilde

423. “Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.”

— Oscar Wilde

424. “Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary.”

— Oscar Wilde

425. “I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.”

— Oscar Wilde

426. “Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.”

— Oscar Wilde

427. “Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman.”

— Oscar Wilde

428. “The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence.”

— Oscar Wilde

429. “The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.”

— Oscar Wilde

430. “I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.”

— Oscar Wilde

431. “Full frontal nudity is reserved for Adam and Eve!”

— Oscar Wilde

432. “The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.”

— Oscar Wilde

433. “It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institutions of private property.”

— Oscar Wilde

434. “Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority.”

— Oscar Wilde

435. “In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”

— Oscar Wilde

436. “Art never expresses anything but itself.”

— Oscar Wilde

437. “I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.”

— Oscar Wilde

438. “Starvation, not sin, is the parent of modern crime.”

— Oscar Wilde

439. “There is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.”

— Oscar Wilde

440. “And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.”

— Oscar Wilde

441. “It is always the unreadable that occurs.”

— Oscar Wilde

442. “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”

— Oscar Wilde

443. “Misfortunes one can endure – they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults – ah! – there is the sting of life.”

— Oscar Wilde

444. “Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”

— Oscar Wilde

445. “Millionaire models are rare enough; but, by Jove, model millionaires are rarer still!”

— Oscar Wilde

446. “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.”

— Oscar Wilde

447. “I am Irish by race but the English have condemned me to talk the language of Shakespeare.”

— Oscar Wilde

448. “The Americans are certainly hero-worshipers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.”

— Oscar Wilde

449. “Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.”

— Oscar Wilde

450. “It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.”

— Oscar Wilde