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The Best Oscar Wilde Quotes, One-Liners, And Witty Sayings

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Oscar Wilde was a man of many loves. Despite everything, he felt genuine affection towards his wife, Constance, who died suddenly in 1898. He loved his sons Cyril and Vyvyan. He loved the beautiful young men and women he drew into his circle, including his most famous lovers, Alfred Douglas and Robert Ross.

And then there was his writing: He published his very first collection of poems in 1881. As the years passed, his art expanded to include short stories, essays, plays, and novels, but it’s his wit that most often is remembered. This Irish genius was known for his quick humor and biting sarcasm — qualities that made him both famous and infamous during his lifetime. When he died young, at only 46 years old, he left behind what would become some of literature’s most famous quotes. Even his last words before his death in a hotel in Paris became iconic: “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes, or I do.” It seems fitting that Oscar Wilde’s last words would be so remarkable since he was such a master at speaking them. In his honor, we created a list of the best Oscar Wilde quotes, so you can also enjoy his most memorable one-liners!

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#1

“Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

22points

Joy Roy 1 year ago

https://www.oscarwildequote.com/

0points

#2

Oscar Wilde quote about being yourself "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

20points

#3

"You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear."

18points

#4

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

18points

#5

Oscar Wilde quote on solitude “A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”

16points

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#6

“The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.”

16points

#7

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

15points

Joy Roy 1 year ago

https://www.oscarwildequote.com/

0points

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#8

Oscar Wilde quote about devils and hell “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

15points

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#9

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What women like is to be a man’s last romance.”

15points

#10

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

15points

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#11

Oscar Wilde quote about right questions “The answers are all out there, we just need to ask the right questions.”

15points

#12

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

15points

#13

"I am not young enough to know everything."

14points

#14

Oscar Wilde quote on nature “It seems to me that we all look at nature too much, and live with her too little.”

14points

#15

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

13points

#16

“True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.”

13points

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#17

Oscar Wilde quote about pessimist “Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.”

13points

#18

“The best revenge is to live well.”

13points

#19

“You are beautiful when you are happy.”

13points

#20

Oscar Wilde quote about enemies "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

12points

#21

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

12points

#22

“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”

12points

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#23

Oscar Wilde quote on talking about nothing “I love to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.”

12points

#24

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”

11points

#25

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”

11points

#26

Oscar Wilde quote about pessimist and opportunity “A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.”

11points

#27

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

11points

#28

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

11points

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#29

Oscar Wilde quote on emotions “The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.”

11points

#30

“Those who have much are often greedy. Those who have little always share.”

11points

#31

"Everything in moderation, including moderation."

10points

#32

Oscar Wilde quote on existentialism “I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”

10points

#33

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”

10points

#34

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”

10points

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#35

Oscar Wilde quote on worth “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.”

10points

#36

“The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.”

10points

#37

“Circumstances should never alter principles!”

10points

#38

Oscar Wilde quote on living “I don't want to earn a living. I want to live.”

10points

#39

“My wish isn't to mean everything to everyone but something to someone.”

10points

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#40

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

10points

#41

Oscar Wilde quote on temptation "I can resist everything except temptation."

9points

#42

"True friends stab you in the front."

9points

#43

“Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

9points

#44

Oscar Wilde quote about treating someone like ordinary “Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”

9points

#45

“The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart-hearts are made to be broken-but that it turns one’s heart to stone.”

9points

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#46

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”

9points

#47

Oscar Wilde quote about freedom, flowers, books and the moon “With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?”

9points

#48

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

9points

#49

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

9points

#50

Oscar Wilde quote about woman “Every woman is a rebel.”

9points

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#51

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

9points

#52

“The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”

9points

#53

Oscar Wilde quote about popular things “Everything popular is wrong.”

9points

#54

“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

9points

#55

“It's beauty that captures your attention. Personality which captures your heart.”

9points

#56

Oscar Wilde quote on writting and thinking “If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”

9points

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#57

“To look at a thing is very different from seeing it.”

9points

#58

“Where there is no love there is no understanding.”

9points

#59

Oscar Wilde quote about mask "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell the truth."

8points

#60

"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

8points

#61

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

8points

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#62

Oscar Wilde quote on stars “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

8points

#63

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

8points

#64

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”

8points

#65

Oscar Wilde quote about world, stage and cast “The world is a stage and the play is badly cast.”

8points

#66

“If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.”

8points

#67

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

8points

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#68

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.”

8points

#69

Oscar Wilde quote on stupidity “There is no sin except stupidity.”

8points

#70

“The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously-and have somebody find out.”

8points

#71

“Hear no evil, speak no evil, and you won't be invited to cocktail parties.”

8points

#72

Oscar Wild quote on procrastination “I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do - the day after.”

8points

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#73

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

8points

#74

“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”

8points

#75

Oscar Wilde quote on charm “She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.”

8points

#76

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

8points

#77

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

8points

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#78

Oscar Wilde quote on illusion and pleasures “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”

8points

#79

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.”

8points

#80

“Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.”

8points

#81

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

8points

#82

Oscar Wilde quote about compliments “Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.”

8points

#83

“I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.”

8points

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#84

“The only one you need in your life is that person who shows you he needs you.”

8points

#85

Oscar Wilde quote about big words “Don't use big words. They mean so little.”

8points

#86

“Any place that we love becomes our world.”

8points

#87

“Love is like a war; easy to start but hard to end and you never know where it might take you.”

8points

#88

Oscar Wilde quote about best books “I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have only written five.”

8points

#89

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

7points

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#90

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

7points

#91

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

7points

#92

Oscar Wilde quote on mimicry “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

7points

#93

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”

7points

#94

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”

7points

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#95

Oscar Wilde quotes on true friends “Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.”

7points

#96

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

7points

#97

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

7points

#98

Oscar Wild quote on laugh “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”

7points

#99

“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”

7points

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#100

“They've promised that dreams can come true- but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.”

7points

#101

Oscar Wilde quote about love between man and women “A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”

7points

#102

“I don’t say we all ought to misbehave. But we ought to look as if we could.”

7points

#103

“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.”

7points

#104

Oscar Wilde quote on patriotism and vicious “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”

7points

#105

“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”

7points

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#106

“Hatred is blind, as well as love.”

7points

#107

Oscar Wilde quote on mystery of the world “The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

7points

#108

“Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.”

7points

#109

“No better way is there to learn to love nature than to understand art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.”

7points

#110

Oscar Wilde quote on sympathy “If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.”

7points

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#111

“Don't be discouraged if your children reject your advice. Years later they will offer it to their own offspring.”

7points

#112

“Thinking is wonderful, but the experience is even more wonderful.”

7points

#113

Oscar Wilde quote about happy childrens “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”

7points

#114

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens.”

7points

#115

“We always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others.”

7points

#116

Oscar wilde quote on selfishness “A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”

7points

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#117

“History is only gossip.”

7points

#118

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

6points

#119

Oscar Wilde quote about how clever he is "I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

6points

#120

"I can never travel without my diary, one should always have something sensational to read on the train."

6points

#121

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

6points

Pickles 2 years ago

A book is a gift that is opened again & again.

0points

#122

Oscar Wilde quote about experience “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

6points

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#123

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

6points

#124

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

6points

#125

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

6points

#126

Oscar Wilde quote about agreeing “Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.”

6points

#127

“Some things are more precious because they don't last long.”

6points

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#128

“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

6points

#129

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”

6points

#130

Oscar Wild quote about tragedies “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

6points

#131

“Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”

6points

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#132

“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.”

6points

#133

Oscar Wilde quote about mystery “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.”

6points

#134

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

6points

#135

“The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.”

6points

#136

Oscar Wilde quote on sincerity “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

6points

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#137

“One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.”

6points

#138

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”

6points

#139

“There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.”

6points

#140

Oscar Wilde quote about self-reproach “There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”

6points

#141

“Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.”

6points

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#142

“Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life.”

6points

#143

Oscar Wilde quote about life “Life is too short to be in a hurry.”

6points

#144

“Most people are other people.”

6points

#145

“I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.”

6points

#146

Oscar Wild quote about astonishing himself “I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.”

6points

#147

“A woman who cannot make her mistakes charming, is only a female.”

6points

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#148

"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

5points

#149

Oscar Wilde quote about wealth “Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”

5points

#150

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight.”

5points

Žydrūnė Trukanavičiūtė

Hi! I'm the visual editor at Bored Panda, spicing up articles on Gardening, Home & Design. Guess what I daydream about? A future home with a huge garden, filled with all kinds of veggies and flowers. Sounds like the perfect match, doesn't it?

Hi! I'm the visual editor at Bored Panda, spicing up articles on Gardening, Home & Design. Guess what I daydream about? A future home with a huge garden, filled with all kinds of veggies and flowers. Sounds like the perfect match, doesn't it?

Melanie Gervasoni

Writer on a quest to explore every corner of the world, one country at a time. Fueled by my love for Arcane, oversized hoodies, and weightlifting, I try my best to bring even more fun energy to Bored Panda. My cup of tea? Pop culture, funny content, sharing interesting facts about the world, and creating listicles for fellow Pandas. When I’m not crafting articles, my eyes are still glued to a screen — be it binge-watching my favorite shows, leveling up in video games, or learning Spanish with Duolingo. Always on the hunt for the ultimate playlist, I scour Deezer to find the right tunes to listen to while working on my creative projects.

Writer on a quest to explore every corner of the world, one country at a time. Fueled by my love for Arcane, oversized hoodies, and weightlifting, I try my best to bring even more fun energy to Bored Panda. My cup of tea? Pop culture, funny content, sharing interesting facts about the world, and creating listicles for fellow Pandas. When I’m not crafting articles, my eyes are still glued to a screen — be it binge-watching my favorite shows, leveling up in video games, or learning Spanish with Duolingo. Always on the hunt for the ultimate playlist, I scour Deezer to find the right tunes to listen to while working on my creative projects.

What do you think ?

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