Oscar Wilde Class Quotations

The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them...

The trouble with the lower classes is that they lack the sense of tragedy given to them by the upper classes.

Art is rarely intelligible to the criminal classes.

And, as for what is called improving conversation, that is merely the foolish method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes.

Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve them.

Judges, like the criminal classes, have their lighter moments

Work is the curse of the drinking class. I can resist everything except temptation. Moderation is a fatal thing - nothing succeeds like excess. We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.

Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

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

The Americans are certainly hero-worshipers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.

In England ... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.

To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability.

The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.