1
I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.Oscar Wilde
2
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.Oscar Wilde
3
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.Oscar Wilde
4
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.Oscar Wilde
5
I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.Oscar Wilde
6
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.Oscar Wilde
7
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.Oscar Wilde
8
The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.Oscar Wilde
9
LADY BRACKNELLTo speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.Oscar Wilde
10
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.Oscar Wilde
11
Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. That is exactly what things were originally made for.Oscar Wilde
12
Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?Oscar Wilde
13
Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.Oscar Wilde
14
Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.Oscar Wilde
15
LADY BRACKNELLThirty-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. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now.Oscar Wilde
16
Even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less then Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable.Oscar Wilde
17
JACKThat is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.ALGERNONThen your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. J A C K That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. A L G E R N O N Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.Oscar Wilde
18
Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that? I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. .Oscar Wilde
19
If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.Oscar Wilde
20
Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.Oscar Wilde
21
I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.Oscar Wilde
22
To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations.Oscar Wilde
23
Outside the family circle, papa, I'm glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.Oscar Wilde
24
We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfacesOscar Wilde
25
It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity, But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.Oscar Wilde
26
I have a business appointment that I am anxious... to miss.Oscar Wilde
27
If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbroker's do that, and then merely at dinner parties.Oscar Wilde
28
MISS PRISMMemory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.Oscar Wilde
29
I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should not probably forget all about them.Oscar Wilde
30
My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about.Oscar Wilde
31
They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.Oscar Wilde
32
Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent .. . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public...Oscar Wilde
33
You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.Oscar Wilde
34
ALGERNON. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact. J A C K. I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted. A L G E R N O N. Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven-..Oscar Wilde
35
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
36
I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.Oscar Wilde
37
JACKYou're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.GWENDOLENOh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.Oscar Wilde
38
I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.Oscar Wilde
39
JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.Oscar Wilde
40
In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way. I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.Oscar Wilde
41
LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. A L G E R N O N I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.Oscar Wilde
42
I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.Oscar Wilde
43
Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd.Oscar Wilde
44
The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean - so Bunbury died. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice.Oscar Wilde
45
How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."" Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."" I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.Oscar Wilde
46
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.Oscar Wilde
47
JACK: I will be back in a few moments, dear Canon. Gwendolen! Wait here for me! G W E N D O L E N: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.Oscar Wilde
48
I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.Oscar Wilde
49
Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.Oscar Wilde
50
JACK.I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. A L G E R N O N. We have. J A C K. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? A L G E R N O N. The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. J A C K. What fools!.Oscar Wilde