Oscar Wilde

A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say at the age of eighteen.

Oscar Wilde

A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.

Oscar Wilde

A burnt child loves the fire.

Oscar Wilde

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

Oscar Wilde

A community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurence of crime.

Oscar Wilde

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

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

A flower blossoms for its own joy.

Oscar Wilde

A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?

Oscar Wilde

A grand passion is the privelege of people who have nothing to do.

Oscar Wilde