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Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable

Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde
Age: 46 †
Born: 1854
Born: October 16
Died: 1900
Died: November 30
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Dublin city
Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
Men
Detestable
Delightful
Cheap
Absolutely
Books
May
Book
Great
Editions

More quotes by Oscar Wilde

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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
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Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
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Fashion: by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.
Oscar Wilde
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Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills.
Oscar Wilde
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After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.
Oscar Wilde
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People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.
Oscar Wilde
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I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.
Oscar Wilde
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Civilization is not by means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.
Oscar Wilde
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Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.
Oscar Wilde
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The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.
Oscar Wilde
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Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, for can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.
Oscar Wilde
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Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
Oscar Wilde
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Most people are boring and stupid.
Oscar Wilde
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Education is very admirable but let us not forget that anything worth knowing cannot be taught.
Oscar Wilde
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History is only gossip.
Oscar Wilde
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A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.
Oscar Wilde
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If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Oscar Wilde
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Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
Oscar Wilde
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Extravagance is the luxury of the poor penury is the luxury of the rich.
Oscar Wilde
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Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut the pessimist the hole!
Oscar Wilde