The Wisdom of Oscar Wilde (3 page)
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
For an educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.
“The Decay of Lying”
All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.
“The Decay of Lying”
In art good intentions are not the smallest value. All bad art is the result of good intentions.
De Profundis
Art never expresses anything but itself.
“The Decay of Lying”
Paradox though it may seem—and paradoxes are always dangerous things—it is none the less true that Life imitates art far more than Art imitates life.
“The Decay of Lying”
When Art is more varied, Nature will, no doubt, be more varied also.
“The Decay of Lying”
Art never expresses anything but itself.
“The Decay of Lying”
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.
“The Decay of Lying”
Most of our modern portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, and the public never sees anything.
“The Decay of Lying”
For there is no art where there is no style, and no style where there is no unity, and unity is of the individual.
“The Critic as Artist”
Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing.
“The Critic as Artist”
The difference between objective and subjective work is one of external form merely. It is accidental, not essential. All artistic creation is absolutely subjective.
“The Critic as Artist”
There are two ways of disliking art, Ernest. One is to dislike it. The other, to like it rationally.
“The Critic as Artist”
For the real artist is he who proceeds, not from feeling to form, but from form to thought and passion.
“The Critic as Artist”
Indeed, so far from its being true that the artist is the best judge of art, a really great artist can never judge of other people’s work at all and can hardly, in fact, judge of his own.
“The Critic as Artist”
Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice.
“The Critic as Artist”
More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon:
Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a university. They do it so well in the daily papers.
The Importance of Being Earnest
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one’s self over poetry is an honour.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There is no literary public in England except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all the people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There is a great deal to be said in favour of reading a novel backwards. The last page is, as a rule, the most interesting....
“A Thought-Reader’s Novel”
We should all be much improved if we started the day with a fine passage of English poetry.
“A New Calendar”
A real philanthropist should recognize it as part of his duties to buy every new book of verse that appears.
“News from Parnassus”
One should not be too severe on English novels: they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.
“Pleasing and Prattling”
It is pleasanter to have the entree to Balzac’s society than to receive cards from all the duchesses in Mayfair.
“Balzac in English”
From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates.
“The Critic as Artist”
To the [poet] belongs life in its full and absolute entirely, not merely the beauty that men look at, but the beauty that men listen to also; not merely the momentary grace of form or the transient gladness of colour, but the whole sphere of feeling, the perfect cycle of thought.
“The Critic as Artist”
The ancient historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the modern novelist presents us with facts under the guise of fiction.
“The Decay of Lying”
I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade shuld be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mr. Ruskin once described the characters in George Eliot’s novels as being like the sweepings of a Pentonville omnibus....
“The Decay of Lying”
We don’t want to be harrowed and disgusted with an account of the doings of the lower orders.
“The Decay of Lying”
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use reading it at all.
“The Decay of Lying”
[Modern memoirs] are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering; which, however, is, no doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.
“The Critic as Artist”
As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.
“The Critic as Artist”
In fact, the popular novel that the public calls healthy is always a thoroughly unhealthy production; and what the public calls an unhealthy novel is always a beautiful and healthy work of art.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Gwendolen:
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
The Importance of Being Earnest
I quite admit that modern novels have many good points. All I insist on is that, as a class, they are quite unreadable.
“The Decay of Lying”
Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible “points of view” his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire.
“The Decay of Lying”
Ah! Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lighning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do anything except tell a story: as an artist he is everything, except articulate.
“The Decay of Lying”
In modern days … the fashion of writing poetry has become far too common, and should, if possible, be discouraged.
“The Decay of Lying”
… it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any moral tale in the whole of literature.
“The Decay of Lying”
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.
“The Decay of Lying”
Yes, writing has done much harm to writers. We must return to the voice.
“The Critic as Artist”
Gilbert:
Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.
“The Critic as Artist”
Ernest:
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
Gilbert:
Oh! journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read. That is all.
“The Critic as Artist”
To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.
A Woman of No Importance
Mrs. Erlynne:
Don’t use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young”
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune … to lose both looks like carelessness.
The Importance of Being Earnest
One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.
The Importance of Being Earnest
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.
A Woman of No Importance
Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.
A Woman of No Importance
Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Similarly in “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”
I never talk scandal.
I
only talk gossip.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one’s age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
I never talk during music, at least during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one’s duty to drown it in conversation.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself....
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best way of ending one.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
“The Soul of Man Under Socialism”
The sure way of knowing nothing about life, is to try to make oneself useful.
“The Critic as Artist”
To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.
“The Critic as Artist”
A cultured Mahomedan once remarked to us, “You Christians are so occupied in misinterpreting the fourth commandment that you have never thought of making an artistic application of the second.”
“The Decay of Lying”
It is difficult not to be unjust to what one loves.
“The Critic as Artist”
There are things that are right to say, but that may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.
A Woman of No Importance
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
One should never make one’s
debut
with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one’s old age.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it has never happened.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Society, civilised society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals....
The Picture of Dorian Gray
One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Cecil Graham:
Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain.
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up.
“The Soul of Man under Socialism”
Lady Bracknell:
Good-afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving well.
Algernon:
I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
Lady Bracknell:
That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Cecily:
Pray do! I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Cecily:
This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manner. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen:
I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
The Importance of Being Earnest
In point of fact, what is interesting about people in good Society … is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask.