It’s the birthday of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, poet and playwright. Born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, in Dublin on 16th October, 1854, Oscar Wilde is famous for his plays and his confinement and untimely death at age 46. His prominent works include The Picture of Dorian Gray (a novel), Salome (a play), An Ideal Husband (a play), and The Importance of Being Earnest (a play).
Oscar Wilde is also famous for his intellectual humor and witty epigrams. Some of his most famous one-liners include, “Life is never fair. And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” And, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Below are some more of his most inspirational epigrams.
At age 40, Oscar Wilde was arrested and subsequently convicted for two years of hard labor for “gross indecency.” His health deteriorated when he got out of prison and moved to Paris. For the next four years, he travelled around Europe and died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900.
Suggested Reading
- Oscar Wilde bibliography
- Oscar Wilde’s Wit and Wisdom
- Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Collins Classics)
Inspirational Epigrams by Oscar Wilde
The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
True friends stab you in the front.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself; and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
A sentimentalist is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of a single thing.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
To be premature is to be perfect.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)