Quote

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market place of any single thing.

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
Doesn
Absurd
Place
Sees
Everything
Price
Nothing
Market
Thing
Dear
Men
Value
Single
Sentimentalist
Values
Cynic

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Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
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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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I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals.
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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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It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.
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When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love, and the wise already have one in reserve.
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Those who have much are often greedy. Those who have little always share.
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I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity.
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It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
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If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
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The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art.
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Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.
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There is no man who is not, at each moment, what he has been and what he will be.
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Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.
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There is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage: a marriage in which there is love, but on one side only.
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Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.
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Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
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Fantastic shadows of birds
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I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.
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Lord Darlington (LD): I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. Lady Windemere (LW): If we had 'hard-and-fast rules' we would find life much simpler. LD: You allow of no exceptions? LW: None! LD: Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, LW. LW: The adjective was unnecessary, LD.
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