profound thoughts for the less than profound

OSCAR WILDE was an Irish writer who lived from 1854-1900. Oscar Wilde was one of the arch rivals of the dramatist George Bernard Shaw, probably because they were very much alike. Oscar Wilde is a brilliant wit, and unforutantly, a pompus bastard. Fortunately, he's a profound, philisophical pompus bastard.

"A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?"

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

"A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."

"Ah! don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong."

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

"Anybody can be good in the country."

"All Art is quite useless."

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

"Art never expresses anything but itself."

"As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them."

"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"Either that wall paper goes, or I do."

"For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die."

"He hasn't an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him."

"I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"I can sympathize with everything, except suffering."

"I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose."

"I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy."

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

"I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means."

"If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any."

"Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it, and the bloom is gone."

"In married life three is company and two none."

"In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."

"It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth."

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."

"Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess."

"Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that."

"No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

"On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure."

"One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything."

"One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing."

"Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself."

"Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.

"Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"

"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."

"The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."

"The gods bestowed on Max the gift of perpetual old age."

"The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world."

"The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all."

"The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster."

"There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

"There is no sin except stupidity."

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."

"There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience."

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."

"Three addresses always inspire confidence, even in tradesmen."

"To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals."

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"

If you have any people or quotes you would like to see added here, feel free to e-mail us.
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