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

"While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance."

"He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone."

"I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing."

"Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all."

"I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful."

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

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us."

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."

"Civilisation is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt."

"A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life."

"Conscience makes egotists of us all."

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

"The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves."

"Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact."

"The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic."

"Cynic: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

"In this world there are two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst."

"It is he who has broken the bond of marriage-not I. I only break its bondage."

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

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

"Don't tell me that you have exhausted Life. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him."

"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes."

"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

"I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves."

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."

"It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way."

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

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

"There is no sin except stupidity."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"Time is waste of money."

"A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it."

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

BACK