A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889).
Share with your friends
{ click the image above to pin it! }
More from Oscar Wilde
After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
A Woman of No Importance
view
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Letter to James McNeill Whistler (23 February 1885).
Over the piano was printed a notice: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.
Personal Impressions of America (Leadville) (1883)
Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.
Personal Impressions of America (Leadville) (1883).
I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious. Or perhaps I’ll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.
Quoted in "In Victorian days and other papers" By Sir David Oswald Hunter-Blair (1939)