Oscar Wilde Mean Quotations

When people talk to me about the weather, I always feel they mean something else.

When I ask for a water cress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

The universe is God. I am God so that means I am the universe.

She doth mean the earth to me! By earth, I actually mean dust.

Always! That is the dreadful word ... it is a meaningless word, too.

To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.

I wrote when I did not know life; now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write. Life cannot be written; life can only be lived.

And now, I am dying beyond my means. (Said while sipping champagne on his deathbed.)

I expect I shall have to die beyond my means.

Intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing.

What is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means?

Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.

How clever are you, my dear! You never mean a single word you say!

Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not , that is what I mean—so Bunbury died. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.

Civilization is not by 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.

Miss Prism: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days. Cecily: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much. Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Civilization 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.

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.

The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes bring you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.

Tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.

Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the 'L' section, and find the word 'life.'

Don't use big words. They mean so little.

Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean .... I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. Dance for me, Salomé, I beseech you. If you dance for me you may ask of me what you will, and I will give it you, even unto the half of my kingdom.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.

Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

If people were meant to be nude, they would have been born this way.

My wish isn't to mean everything to everyone but something to someone.

The man who says he has exhausted life generally means that life has exhausted him.

How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.