"I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices."
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Oscar Wilde quotes (page 76 of 93)
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"An entirely new factor has appeared in the social development of the country, and this factor is the Irish-American, and his influence. To mature its powers, to concentrate its action, to learn the secret of its own strength and of England's weakness, the Celtic intellect has had to cross the Atlantic. At home it had but learned the pathetic weakness of nationality; in a strange land it realised what indomitable forces nationality possesses. What captivity was to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish: America and American influence have educated them."
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"It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure."
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"Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself."
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"They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance"
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"We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone."
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"Ah! somehow life is bigger after all Than any painted angel could we see The God that is within us!"
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"Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority."
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"A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating."
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"Love is easily killed."
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"Alas! it is a fearful thing To feel another's guilt!"
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"In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded....He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him."
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"Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee"
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"Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window."
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"The world is made by the singer for the dreamer."
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"Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it"
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"A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses."
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"It is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologize to one in private for what they have written against one in public."
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"For, try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearence of things to reality. And the terrible reason may be that there is no reality in the things apart from their appearences."
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"The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding. The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married. One should always be in love - that's the reason one should never marry."
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