After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.

— Oscar Wilde

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

— Oscar Wilde

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

— Oscar Wilde

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his path And cleanse his soul from sin? How else but through a broken heart May the Lord Christ enter in?

— Oscar Wilde

Ah! That is the great thing in life, to live the truth.

— Oscar Wilde

A kiss may ruin a human life

— Oscar Wilde

Albeit nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Winglike and no Mani crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honor, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent bloody fee.

— Oscar Wilde

Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkenness.

— Oscar Wilde

ALGERNON. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.JACK. I have no doubt about that, dear Ally. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.ALGERNON. Oh! There is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven-...

— Oscar Wilde

A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain.

— Oscar Wilde