It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable.
Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life.
Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.
A burnt child loves the fire.
I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.
I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question – simple curiosity.
My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist. It produces false impression.
People say sometimes that Beauty is superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.
I see that any materialism in life coarsens the soul, and that the hunger of the body and the appetites of the flesh desecrate always, and often destroy.
The weather is entrancing, but in my heart there is no sun.
There is one thing infinitely more pathetic than to have lost the woman one is in love with, and that is to have won her and found out how shallow she is!
Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.
Tread Lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.
My writing has gone to bits – like my character. I am simply a self-conscious nerve in pain.
I have pleasures, and passions, but the joy of life is gone. I am going under: the morgue yawns for me. I go and look at my zinc-bed there. After all, I had a wonderful life, which is, I fear, over.
Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons.
Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.