Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
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.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Society exists only as a mental concept in the real world there are only individuals.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
friendship, love, men & women
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
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.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.
Children begin by loving their parents after a time they judge them rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
I put all my genius into my life I put only my talent into my works.
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.
In married life three is company and two none.
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
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.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
All art is quite useless.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
Who, being loved, is poor?
True friends stab you in the front.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
When good Americans die they go to Paris.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go.
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
An excellent man he has no enemies and none of his friends like him.
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.