Quote

I don't know how to talk. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

Oscar Wilde

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Talk
Perfect
Tact
Woman
Possessing
Social
Season
Ends
Bored
Firsts
Reputation
First
Seasons
Every
Loved

More quotes by Oscar Wilde

Image
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.
Oscar Wilde
Image
But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.
Oscar Wilde
Image
She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.
Oscar Wilde
Image
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.
Oscar Wilde
Image
It is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologize to one in private for what they have written against one in public.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut the pessimist the hole!
Oscar Wilde
Image
She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.
Oscar Wilde
Image
To be popular one must be a mediocrity. Not with Women, said the duchess, shaking her head and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all. It seems to me that we never do anything else, murmered Dorian.
Oscar Wilde
Image
As I lounged in the Park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at everyone who passed me, and wonder, with mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led. some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Fashion: by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.
Oscar Wilde
Image
The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.
Oscar Wilde
Image
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
Image
If God wished to punish us, all he would need to do would be to answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde
Image
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
Oscar Wilde
Image
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
Oscar Wilde
Image
Every thing to be true must become a religion.
Oscar Wilde
Image
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
Oscar Wilde