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The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful.

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
Useful
State
Individual
Beautiful
States
Make

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Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
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Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.
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Love will fly if held too lightly Love will die if held too tightly . . .
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What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colourless.
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George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered grammar.
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The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not its growth and development.
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To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
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If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
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Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.
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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.
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I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
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Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.
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Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you.
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Those who have much are often greedy. Those who have little always share.
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Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.
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Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.
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I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.
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The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.
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I didn't have a life until I went up onstage.
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America is one long expectoration.
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