15 Oscar Wilde Quotes — Wit, Humor & Brilliant Observations
Oscar Wilde was the master of wit. His sharp observations on society, art, and life are as entertaining and insightful today as they were in Victorian England.
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
On authenticity
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
The Soul of Man under Socialism
"I have nothing to declare except my genius."
Said at U.S. Customs, 1882
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Lady Windermere's Fan
"Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes."
The Picture of Dorian Gray
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
Wilde's characteristic wit
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
The Importance of Being Earnest
"With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?"
De Profundis
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."
On the necessity of love