Oscar Wilde
Irish playwright, poet, and novelist
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
Posted on May 25, 2004 at 11:39 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
Posted on April 6, 2004 at 2:28 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
I don't wish to sign my name, though I am afraid everybody will know who the writer is: one's style is one's signature always.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, Daily Telegraph, February 2, 1891
Posted on January 17, 2000 at 8:40 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
It is only by language that we rise above [the lower animals] — by language, which is the parent, not the child, of thought.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, Intentions, 1891
Posted on July 15, 1998 at 7:26 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
Posted on June 9, 1998 at 6:58 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
—Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
Posted on January 6, 2003 at 1:01 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.
—Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888
Posted on December 4, 2002 at 7:19 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Posted on December 6, 2002 at 8:00 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
We Irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks.
—Oscar Wilde, From Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman, 1987
Posted on December 11, 2002 at 9:51 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Where there is no exaggeration there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding. It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiased opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.
—Oscar Wilde, Speaker, 1890
Posted on July 12, 2002 at 10:45 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Whatever harsh criticisms may be passed on the construction of her sentences, she at least possesses that one touch of vulgarity that makes the whole world kin.
—Oscar Wilde, Book review in Pall Mall Gazette, 1886
Posted on September 10, 2002 at 7:33 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.
—Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
Posted on May 28, 2003 at 1:47 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost
Posted on February 10, 2003 at 2:58 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.
—Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
Posted on April 29, 2003 at 3:59 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.
—Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
Posted on August 5, 2002 at 11:14 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, The Butterfly's Boswell
Posted on July 5, 2001 at 6:44 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate—not to the artist but to the public. . . . Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, Art and the Handicraftsman
Posted on March 15, 2001 at 4:05 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words....The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
Posted on April 9, 2002 at 4:34 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.
—Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, A Woman of No Importance
Posted on May 16, 2002 at 6:33 PM
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