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| Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, New York (1882) |
"My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature."
(The Decay of Lying: An Observation)
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"I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering; which, however, is, no doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a mediocrity is talking to it."
(The Critic as Artist)
***
"What Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition."
(The Decay of Lying: An Observation)
***
"Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarise them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable."
(The Critic as Artist)
***
"If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture, and I prefer houses to the open air."
(The Decay of Lying: An Observation)
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"All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and deliberate."
(The Critic as Artist)
***
"Egotism itself, which is so
necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, is entirely the
result of indoor life."
(The Decay of Lying: An Observation)
***
"The longer one studies life and literature, the more strongly one feels that behind everything that is wonderful stands the individual, and that it is not the moment that makes the man, but the man who creates the age."
(The Critic as Artist)
