Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Playwright)

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900,) fully Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, was an Irish playwright, poet, essayist, editor, and author of many witty epigrams. Wilde’s dazzling ascension to notoriety also included his tragic fall from grace.

Wilde was born in Dublin. His father was a successful surgeon and his mother, a writer and a literary host. Wilde was educated at Dublin’s Trinity College and Magdalen College-Oxford. After graduation, he moved to London to pursue a literary career, announcing, “I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous I’ll be notorious.”

Wilde’s output was diverse. The first volume of his poetry was published in 1881. He contributed to publications such as the Pall Mall Gazette, wrote fairy tales, and published a novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891.)

Wilde’s most exceptional talent was for writing plays, and he produced a string of extremely popular comedies including Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892,) Salome (1892,) An Ideal Husband (1895,) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895.)

Drama and tragedy stained Wilde’s private life. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884. Even when he loved his wife and adored his two sons, Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of an aristocrat. This resulted in one of the most famous trials of the 19th century. Wilde lost a libel suit after being accused as a homosexual. The prosecution exposed many details of Wilde’s private life. He was arrested, tried for gross indecency, and sentenced to two years of hard labor.

When he got out of prison, he wrote his most celebrated poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898,) concerning inhumane prison conditions. With his reputation ruined, he wandered around France and Italy. His health declined rapidly, and he died penniless in a seedy Paris hotel at age 46.

Wilde is considered the world’s most fabulous wit ever. He was a brilliant conversationalist; anecdotes abound about his famous retorts. Once, when U.S. Customs asked him if he had anything to declare upon his arrival in New York, Wilde replied, “Nothing but my genius.”

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Oscar Wilde

The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet’s dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Fear, Optimism, Blessings, Silver Linings

Industry is the root of all ugliness.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Beauty

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Advice

While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Style

To get back to my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Youth

With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stock broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.
—Oscar Wilde

There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: America

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one’s back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Truth, Gossip

Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Goals, Aspirations, Pleasure

Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Education

She is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Shame

The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope. When the Verities become acrobats we can judge them.
—Oscar Wilde

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Forgiveness, Love, One liners, Enemies

Marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men disagree.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Marriage

Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.
—Oscar Wilde

London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Marriage, Wives

Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Government

Man reaches his perfection, not through what he has, not even through what he does, but entirely through what he is.
—Oscar Wilde

I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Age

When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Happiness

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.
—Oscar Wilde

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: One liners, Memory, Memories

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Criticism, Autobiography

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune… to lose both seems like carelessness.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Parenting, Parents

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Authority, One liners

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Marriage, Love

I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Work, Cause, Desire, Great, Give

I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.
—Oscar Wilde
Topics: Vegetarianism

He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.
—Oscar Wilde

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