Axioms and Æsthetics for the Use of the Young

Inspired by Disney film The Great Mouse Detective, and The Basil of Baker Street Mysteries by Eve Titus. Inspired and based on Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young and A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated by Oscar Wilde, The Wit and Widsom of Oscar Wilde: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecodotes, and Repartee by Ralph Keyes, and anything I can consume on Oscar Wilde.

Edited and illustrated by Diane N. Tran. <escottish140@hotmail.com>
Publication for this GMD site © 13 February 2000

(Editor's Note: Written text is copyright of the Oscar Wilde and his estate, editted for creative purposes. Images are copyright of the illustrator. Rebroadcast, redistribution, or reproduction of this document, in whole or in part, is prohibited without prior, written permission.)



In honouring memory to the ever-modern wit of Mr. Oscar Wilde,
may they understand and respect.


To the Young and Irrepressible, my adoring public.

It is absurd to talk of the ignorance of Youth.
The Young are the only ones wise enough to critique my work.
The Old do not know any worse, therefore know nothing at all.


By Oscar Milde, The Saturday Review.

To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

The first duty in life is to be as artifical as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Wickedness is a myth invented by the good masses to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

Extravagance is the luxury of the poor, penury the luxury of the rich.

Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

The well-bred contradict others. The wise contradict themselves.

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.

In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

One's style is one's signature always.

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

Better to take pleasure in a rose than to put its root under a microscope.

© 2000 DIANE N. TRAN
The young æsthete and poet Oscar Milde, a few weeks before his American lecture-tour.
"I always contradict the aged; I do it on principle."

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.

There is no sin except for stupidity.

The young, nowadays, imagine that money is everything, and when they grow older, they know it.

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.

Only the shallow know themselves.

One should always be a little improbable.

Time is a waste of money.

There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.

Always pass on good advice, it is the only thing to do with it. It is never any good to oneself.

The only way to atone for being occasionally a little overdressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

To be premature is to be perfect.

If one plays good music, we don't listen, and if one plays bad music, we don't talk.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.

Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

A truth ceases to be true when more than another believes in it.

In examinations, the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what others wear.

It is only the superficial qualities that last. One's deeper nature is soon found out.

A thing is not necessarily true because someone dies for it.

In this world, there are two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.

The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.

The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

Industry is the root of all ugliness.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

There is something tragic about the enormous number of young mice there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.

Now-a-days to be intelligible is to be found out.

Those whom the gods hate die old.

Those whom the gods love grow young.



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