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They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.

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
Kind
Fact
Painter
Always
Artist
Cease
Would
Write
Paint
Like
Facts
Asking
Else
Writer
Doe
Somebody
Anything
Either
Writing
Quite
Oblivious

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If God wished to punish us, all he would need to do would be to answer our prayers.
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Nowadays, saying what you really think can be a serious error since one risks being misunderstood.
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To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune to lose both looks like carelessness.
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Man is many things, but he is not rational.
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The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.
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The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought and sold and bartered away.
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Oh, no doubt the cod is a splendid swimmer - admirable for swimming purposes but not for eating.
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All the spring may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns.
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Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
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Yes poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd.
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No art ever survived censorship no art ever will.
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Work is the curse of the drinking class. I can resist everything except temptation. Moderation is a fatal thing - nothing succeeds like excess. We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.
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Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.
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The truth about the life of a man is not what he does, but the legend which he creates around himself.
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Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.
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Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's lumber
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That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.
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