Oscar Wilde

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.

It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.