Oscar Wilde
1854–1900
18 genuine quotes, each found in the text, and 7 wrongly credited to Wilde.
Irish playwright, novelist and wit, the most quoted epigrammatist in English. Many of his best lines are spoken by his dandies (Lord Henry in Dorian Gray, Lord Illingworth, Lord Goring), who are not simply Wilde; and so many sharp sayings are credited to him that a large share of ‘Wilde quotes’ are not his at all.
FrontispieceMade by an image model after Napoleon Sarony’s photograph of Oscar Wilde (1882, public domain), in the manner of Art Nouveau (1890–1910). The likeness is the original’s; this picture is AI‑generated and not historical. The endpaper behind it is an AI‑generated pattern in the same manner.
Genuine Wilde quotes
- Yet each man kills the thing he loves.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), Part I, said by the poem’s ‘I’.
- Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act III, said by Cecil Graham.
- A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act III, said by Lord Darlington.
- To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
An Ideal Husband (1895), Act III, said by Lord Goring.
- Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
De Profundis (1905), De Profundis.
- Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Intentions (1891), The Decay of Lying, said by Vivian.
- To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891), The paragraph beginning “With the abolition of private property, then”, about a third of the way in.
- Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Intentions (1891), The Critic as Artist, Part II, said by Gilbert.
- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act III, said by Lord Darlington.
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 2, said by Lord Henry Wotton.
Show all 18 genuine Wilde quotesShow fewer
- I can resist everything except temptation.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act I, said by Lord Darlington.
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act I, said by Algernon Moncrieff.
- There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter 1, said by Lord Henry Wotton.
- All art is quite useless.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), The Preface.
- I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Act II, Gwendolen and Cecily comparing their engagements, said by Gwendolen Fairfax.
- There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Preface.
- Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Intentions (1891), The Critic as Artist, Part I (With Some Remarks upon the Importance of Doing Nothing), Gilbert and Ernest on Greek criticism, said by Gilbert.
- Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (1891), The Sphinx Without a Secret, opening conversation at the Café de la Paix, said by the unnamed first-person narrator.
Quotes wrongly credited to Wilde
- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Misattributed. Percy Colson wrote it, not Wilde.
- Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.
- Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
Not found. Not in these words, and not as his last words. Friends reported a joke of his about a wallpaper from 1908 on; this wording comes from much later retellings.
- Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.
- I have nothing to declare except my genius.
Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.
- Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.
- True friends stab you in the front.
Not found. No source in Wilde has been established. A close form was printed in Walter Winchell’s column in 1955, credited to Jimmy Nelson; the early history here rests on Wikiquote, not directly inspected newspaper pages.
Paraphrased: Wilde’s thought, in other words
- Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Paraphrase. The idea is in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act I, said by Lord Darlington.
- You can never be overdressed or overeducated.
Paraphrase. The idea is in Miscellanies (1908), Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (The Chameleon, December 1894), collected in Miscellanies.
The works we hold
Quotes are looked up word for word in these texts. The number is how many genuine quotes here come from each.
| Work | Year | Genuine quotes |
|---|---|---|
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | 1891 | 4 |
| The Importance of Being Earnest | 1895 | 2 |
| Lady Windermere’s Fan | 1892 | 4 |
| A Woman of No Importance | 1893 | 0 |
| An Ideal Husband | 1895 | 1 |
| De Profundis | 1905 | 1 |
| The Soul of Man under Socialism | 1891 | 1 |
| Intentions | 1891 | 3 |
| The Ballad of Reading Gaol | 1898 | 1 |
| The Happy Prince and Other Tales | 1888 | 0 |
| Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories | 1891 | 1 |
| Miscellanies | 1908 | 0 |