Oscar Wilde

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

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