“Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”
“The first duty of life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one as yet discovered.”
“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”
“Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.”
“Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.”
“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”
“His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.”
“With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stock broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.”
“One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.”
“The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.”
“The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others.”
“Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.”
“It is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes.”
“One should never make one's debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age.”
“There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”
“I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye upon that little tent of blue which prisoners call the sky.”
“She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.”
“The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.”
“London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognize them. They look so thoroughly unhappy.”
“Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.”
“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”
“When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is.”
“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 difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason.”
“Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.”
“There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.”
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”
“Lord Illingworth: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. Mrs. Allonby: No man does. That is his.”
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”