Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that."
53 Quotes
"Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?GWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest. JACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me"
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"JACK. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON. We have. JACK. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?ALGERNON. The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. JACK. What fools!"
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"JACK: I will be back in a few moments, dear Canon. Gwendolen! Wait here for me!GWENDOLEN: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean - so Bunbury died. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"LADY BRACKNELLI had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. ALGERNONI hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way. I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"JACKYou're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax. GWENDOLENOh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"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."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public..."
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
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