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The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion-these are the two things that govern us.

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
Moral
Society
Morals
Religion
Govern
Two
Basis
Things
Bases
Terror
Anxiety
Secret

More quotes by Oscar Wilde

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Be happy, be happy you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty.
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Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.
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Who am I to tamper with a masterpiece?
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There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late
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I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.
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Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.
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What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
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I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious. Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense. Nobody ever does.
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At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still, But the sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill, For the Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to kill.
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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.
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When I had to fill in my immigration papers, I gave my age as 19, and my profession as genius I added that I had nothing to declare except my talent.
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As for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself.
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We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.
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If we're always guided by other people's thoughts, what's the point in having our own?
Oscar Wilde
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There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
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Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore.
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That is the mission of art - to make us pause and look at a thing a second time.
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History is merely gossip
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To live in this world is a rare thing most people just exist.
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