Quote

But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.

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
Memories
Fail
Limbs
Sluggish
Passion
Memory
Passions
Degenerates
Failing
Yield
Temptations
Back
Youth
Temptation
Puppets
Much
Afraid
Twenty
Haunted
Never
Courage
Twenties
Hideous
Joy
Senses
Exquisite
Becomes
Beats
Pulse
Degenerate

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The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.
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In a temple everything should be serious except the thing that is being worshiped.
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Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
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A mutual misunderstanding.
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If the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty
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All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
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And, by the way, one of the most delightful things I find in America is meeting a people without prejudice -- everywhere open to the truth.
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I would not a bit mind sleeping in the cool grass in summer, and when winter came on sheltering myself by the warm close-thatched rick, or under the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart.
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Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance.
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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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The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and not intellectual.
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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.
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We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it
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In England ... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
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Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of Autumn but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.
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Let me be dressed as I will, yet flies worms and flowers exceed me still.
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The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.
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Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.
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