Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The great poet is always a seer, seeing less with the eyes of the body than he does with the eyes of the mind.
The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.
One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about.
But what world says that [I'm wicked]? It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.
By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
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.
It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression.
I am very glad I have travelled. Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one's prejudices.
If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression that gives reality to things.
Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.
The reason we are so pleased to find other people's secrets is that it distracts public attention from our own.
It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not its growth and development.
I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.
Musical people always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be perfectly deaf.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering.
Don't be discouraged if your children reject your advice. Years later they will offer it to their own offspring.
If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.
The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious.
The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.
London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.
She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
Great passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by those who are on a level with them
I have no objection to anyone's sex life as long as they don't practice it in the street and frighten the horses.
Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism.
Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling.
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .
...The two great turning-points of my life were when my father sent to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison.
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.
Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
Then there was a man who said, 'I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; by then it was too late'
Nothing is good in moderation. You cannot know good in anything until you have torn the heart out of it by excess.
One should never make one's entrance with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!
The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.
It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.
The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.
A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.