But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.
I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious." "Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense." "Nobody ever does.
Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.
People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26.911 words. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?
The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grand-pères ont toujours tort.
Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world - it dreams away its life in the Conca d'Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.