Oscar Wilde

"If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world."

"I don't like compliments and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean."

"I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets."

"Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian...I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does. I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes."

"To become a work of art is the object of living."

"There was something tragic in a friendship so colored by romance."

"In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it."

"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives."

"Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating."

"I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him."

"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."

"He is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for his love I would surrender heaven."