Few writers wield wit with the sparkle of Oscar Wilde. More than a century after his plays and essays lit up London, his sentences still leap from the page, pairing playfulness with piercing insight. This hand-picked collection gathers fifty of his sharpest, warmest and most enduring lines—tiny masterclasses in seeing the world anew.
Dip into themed sections for humour, self-reflection, love, creativity and social commentary, and let his words challenge and charm in equal measure. Whether you need a clever caption, a dose of perspective or just a smile, these Oscar Wilde quotes are here to brighten your day. Enjoy the journey.
😄 Wit & Humor
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
— Oscar Wilde“I can resist everything except temptation.”
— Oscar Wilde“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
— Oscar Wilde“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”
— Oscar Wilde“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
— Oscar Wilde“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
— Oscar Wilde“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
— Oscar Wilde“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors, and miss.”
— Oscar Wilde“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”
— Oscar Wilde🌱 Life & Self
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
— Oscar Wilde“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
— Oscar Wilde“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.”
— Oscar Wilde“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
— Oscar Wilde“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
— Oscar Wilde“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
— Oscar Wilde“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
— Oscar Wilde“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
— Oscar Wilde“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.”
— Oscar Wilde❤️ Love & Relationships
“Women are made to be loved, not understood.”
— Oscar Wilde“Men always want to be a woman’s first love; women like to be a man’s last romance.”
— Oscar Wilde“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
— Oscar Wilde“Who, being loved, is poor?”
— Oscar Wilde“Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”
— Oscar Wilde“The heart was made to be broken.”
— Oscar Wilde“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
— Oscar Wilde“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
— Oscar Wilde“True friends stab you in the front.”
— Oscar Wilde“Any place you love is the world to you.”
— Oscar Wilde🎨 Art & Beauty
“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”
— Oscar Wilde“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”
— Oscar Wilde“The artist is the creator of beautiful things.”
— Oscar Wilde“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
— Oscar Wilde“All art is quite useless.”
— Oscar Wilde“Beauty is a form of genius—is higher, indeed, than genius.”
— Oscar Wilde“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.”
— Oscar Wilde“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
— Oscar Wilde“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”
— Oscar Wilde“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
— Oscar Wilde🌍 Society & Morality
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
— Oscar Wilde“Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.”
— Oscar Wilde“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
— Oscar Wilde“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
— Oscar Wilde“Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”
— Oscar Wilde“The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on; it is never any use to oneself.”
— Oscar Wilde“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
— Oscar Wilde“When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.”
— Oscar Wilde“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
— Oscar Wilde“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue.”
— Oscar WildeGreat writing leaves echoes long after the last word fades, and Oscar Wilde’s voice is no exception. Keep this selection close whenever you crave a reminder to laugh at convention, follow beauty or speak your truth with style.
Share the quotes that resonate, jot them in a journal or turn them into daily affirmations—the choice is yours. Return whenever you need fresh inspiration, and let Wilde’s timeless wit continue to cast new light on the stories you live each day.
About Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, who was born in 1854 and died in 1900, remains one of literature’s brightest sparks of wit and wisdom. Raised in Dublin by a polymathic surgeon father and a poet mother, Wilde excelled at Trinity College before dazzling Victorian London with his conversation, essays and flamboyant style.
His celebrated plays—such as The Importance of Being Earnest—skewered social hypocrisy with laughter, while his sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, probed the tension between beauty and morality.
Wilde championed the Aesthetic movement’s creed that art exists for its own sake, yet his words never shy away from moral insight. His imprisonment for “gross indecency” exposed the era’s harsh judgments, deepening his empathy for outsiders.
The quotes collected here reveal Wilde’s world-view: humour as a truth-teller, beauty as a guiding star and individuality as a moral imperative. Whether teasing convention (“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much”) or urging authenticity (“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”), Wilde distilled complex ideas into playful, memorable lines.
More than a century on, his turns of phrase invite us to question façades, cherish imagination and live with bold sincerity—proof that a quick mind can leave a lasting, liberating echo.
