87 Oscar Wilde Quotes on Love & Life

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet, playwright, and novelist who lived from 1854 to 1900. He is widely regarded as one of the most prominent figures of the late Victorian era. His works are known for their wit, humor, and satire, and he is considered a master of the English language. We’ve compiled 87 of the best Oscar Wilde quotes to inspire you.

The quotes are categorized into different themes such as love, life, art, and society. We will delve into the wisdom of Wilde and how it can help us navigate the complexities of modern life.

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Oscar Wilde Quotes

1. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

2. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

3. “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde

4. “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” – Oscar Wilde

5. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde

6. “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” – Oscar Wilde

7. “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.” – Oscar Wilde

8. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde

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9. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde

10. “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” – Oscar Wilde

11. “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” – Oscar Wilde

12. “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.” – Oscar Wilde

13. “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde

14. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden where the flowers are dead.” – Oscar Wilde

15. “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” – Oscar Wilde

16. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde

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17. “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” – Oscar Wilde

18. The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.” – Oscar Wilde

19. “Ah! realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.” – Oscar Wilde

20. “It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.” – Oscar Wilde

21. “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” – Oscar Wilde

22. “A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.” – Oscar Wilde

23. “Live life with no excuses and travel with no regret.” – Oscar Wilde

24. “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” – Oscar Wilde

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25. “Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” – Oscar Wilde

26. “The answers are all out there, we just need to ask the right questions.” – Oscar Wilde

27. “We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.” – Oscar Wilde

28. “Some people always know the price, but not the value.” – Oscar Wilde

29. “Life is too short to be taken seriously.” – Oscar Wilde

30. “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.” – Oscar Wilde

31. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde

32. “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.” – Oscar Wilde

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33. “Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.” – Oscar Wilde

34. “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.” – Oscar Wilde

35. “To look at a thing is very different from seeing it.” – Oscar Wilde

36. “The best way to enjoy your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde

37. “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

38. “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” – Oscar Wilde

39. “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” – Oscar Wilde

40. “Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.” – Oscar Wilde

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41. “The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” – Oscar Wilde

42. “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” – Oscar Wilde

43. “Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.” – Oscar Wilde

44. “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” – Oscar Wilde

45. “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.” – Oscar Wilde

46. “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.” – Oscar Wilde

47. “The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.” – Oscar Wilde

48. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” – Oscar Wilde

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49. “Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.” – Oscar Wilde

50. “It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But… it is better to be good than to be ugly.” – Oscar Wilde

51. “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” – Oscar Wilde

52. “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.” – Oscar Wilde

53. “If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.” – Oscar Wilde

54. “The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.” – Oscar Wilde

55. “Learn to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity.” – Oscar Wilde

56. “A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young.” – Oscar Wilde

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57. “Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life.” – Oscar Wilde

58. “I don’t want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.” – Oscar Wilde

59. “True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have.” – Oscar Wilde

60. “The only one you need in your life is that person who shows you he needs you in his.” – Oscar Wilde

61. “Don’t use big words. They mean so little.” – Oscar Wilde

62. “Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.” – Oscar Wilde

63. “The best revenge is to live well.” – Oscar Wilde

64. “It is perfectly possible to get what you think you want and be miserable. It’s possible too, to never get it but deeply enjoy the process of trying. In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” – Oscar Wilde

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65. “The only thing I cannot resist is temptation.” – Oscar Wilde

66. “Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.” – Oscar Wilde

67. “A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.” – Oscar Wilde

68. “Sometimes, the unnecessary is necessary.” – Oscar Wilde

69. “I don’t want to earn my living, I want to live.” – Oscar Wilde

70. “Those who have much are often greedy. Those who have little always share.” – Oscar Wilde

71. “Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do.” – Oscar Wilde

72. “If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.” – Oscar Wilde

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73. “Any place that we love becomes our world.” – Oscar Wilde

74. “The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.” – Oscar Wilde

75. “To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.” – Oscar Wilde

76. “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” – Oscar Wilde

77. “Never buy anything simply because it is expensive.” – Oscar Wilde

78. “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” – Oscar Wilde

79. “They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about.” – Oscar Wilde

80. “Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.” – Oscar Wilde

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81. “Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.” – Oscar Wilde

82. “Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.” – Oscar Wilde

83. “Life is too short to be in a hurry.” – Oscar Wilde

84. “Art only begins where Imitation ends.” – Oscar Wilde

85. “Most people are boring and stupid.” – Oscar Wilde

86. “Where there is no love there is no understanding.” – Oscar Wilde

87. “Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.” – Oscar Wilde

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