'Everything Popular Is Wrong'—Here Are the 50 Best Oscar Wilde Quotes

There's a rather amusing quote from Winston Churchill: "Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip". If there's anyone who embodies that quote, it's one of the most popular playwrights of early-1890s London, Oscar Wilde. And fortunately, we've compiled 50 of the very best Oscar Wilde quotes to inspire and entertain you.

Wilde gained popularity during the Aestheticism period for his views on art: being beautiful for the sake of beauty itself. His most popular works are The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lady Windermere's Fan.

The famous writer described himself as an impeccably dressed and mannered dandy figure whose life was a work of art. It's fairly apparent from his notable quotes that he revered the arts and enjoyed forming words into beautiful, thought-provoking quips. While some will make you chuckle and others will have you in awe, you'll definitely enjoy these words from Oscar Wilde.

50 Best Oscar Wilde Quotes

1. "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

2. "Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike."

3. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

4. "The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."

5. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

6. "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

7. "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

8. "Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result."

9. "The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

10. "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

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11. "No man is rich enough to buy back his past."

12. "By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

13. "Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

14. "Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

15. "Men always want to be a woman's first love. Women like to be a man's last romance."

16. "If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."

17. "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."

18. "An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him."

19. "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life."

20. "Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

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21. "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

22. "It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." 

23. "True friends stab you in the front."

24. "Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

25. "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." 

26. "Women are made to be loved, not understood."

27. "It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection."

28. "It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But, it is better to be good than to be ugly."

29. "A man who does not think for himself does not think at all."

30. "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

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31. "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."

32. "Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

33. "Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

34. "Everything popular is wrong."

35. "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

36. "Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much."

37. "When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers."

38. "I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

39. "Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."

40. "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."

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41. "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."

42. "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

43. "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."

44. "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

45. "One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."

46. "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

47. "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

48. "A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

49. "To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."

50. "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. I can resist everything but temptation."

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