"One should always be in love. That's the reason one should never marry."

"Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be heardSome do it with a bitter lookSome with a flattering wordThe coward does it with a kissThe brave man with a sword"

"Who, being loved, is poor?"

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

"The heart was made to be broken."

"Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary."

"Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.Yes, murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; and when they grow older they know it."

"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."

"Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."

"If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want."

"The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life."

"In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."

"It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different."

"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."

"The world is a stage and the play is badly cast."

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past."

"No good deed goes unpunished."

"I have nothing to declare except my genius."