Oscar Wilde

The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored.

He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.

Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.

To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

Nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful.