Oscar Wilde

"The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."

"Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinion."

"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."

"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies."

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

"I have nothing to declare except my genius."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"I am not arguing with you—I am telling you."

"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death."

"I can resist everything except temptation, but I try not to."

"Fashion is something that exists in clothes and in one's mind. Not all women are lucky enough to be fashionable."

"The secret to life is enjoying the passage of time."

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

"I have made an important discovery: all life is only a dream."

"Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness."

"Be good and you will be lonesome."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."

"I have the simplest tastes in the world. I am perfectly satisfied with the best."

"Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past."

"Crime and prisons are so good for society."

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple, but it is always necessary."