Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man
1911
Wilde's aphorisms are not mere clever sayings. They are precision instruments of thought, each one designed to make you see a truth you'd somehow missed. In this collection, he turns his gaze on love and its delusions, on society and its hypocrisies, on beauty and its strange power, on the entire architecture of human convention. Every sentence is a small revolution. He tells us that the truth is rarely pure and never simple, that we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars, that moderation is a fatal thing. These paradoxes are not games - they are the closest approximations to experience that language allows. The Soul of Man section extends this project, examining what we owe to each other and to ourselves, questioning whether progress truly exists, asking what it means to live well in a world of suffering. This is Wilde at his most distilled: philosophy as performance art, wisdom wrapped in wit. If you want to be delighted and disturbed in equal measure, if you want every page to give you something to say at dinner, start here.
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“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.””
— Oscar Wilde
“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.””
— Oscar Wilde
“It's the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Nature is no great mother who has home us. She is our own creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life. Things are because we see them, and what we see and how we see it depends on the arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.””
— Oscar Wilde
“The tragedy of old age is not that one is old but that one is young.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.””
— Oscar Wilde
“Women are made to be loved, not to be understood.””
— Oscar Wilde
