Here’s 30 Oscar Wilde Quotes That Inspired People. These quotes capture Oscar Wilde’s wit, wisdom, and insight into human nature and society:
- “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Attributed
- “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
- “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
- “I can resist everything except temptation.” – Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
- “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” – Attributed
- “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
- “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- “A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” – The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
- “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – An Ideal Husband (1895)
- “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” – The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
- “No good deed goes unpunished.” – Attributed
- “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” – The Critic as Artist (1891)
- “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” – An Ideal Husband (1895)
- “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” – The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888)
- “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” – Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
- “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.” – A Woman of No Importance (1893)
- “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” – The Philosophy of Dress (1885)
- “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” – Attributed
- “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” – Attributed
- “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.” – The Critic as Artist (1891)
- “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” – The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
- “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” – A Woman of No Importance (1893)
- “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- “The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.” – Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (1891)
- “Men always want to be a woman’s first love. Women like to be a man’s last romance.” – A Woman of No Importance (1893)
- “To define is to limit.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
- “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – De Profundis (1905)
- “Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” – The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde (1922)