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    Shorter Prose Pieces
    Shorter Prose Pieces
    Shorter Prose Pieces
    Ebook46 pages44 minutes

    Shorter Prose Pieces

    By Oscar Wilde

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    About this ebook

    Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, and a plentitude of aphorisms, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially "The Importance of Being Earnest".
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Classics
    Release dateMay 30, 2014
    ISBN9781633551954
    Shorter Prose Pieces
    Author

    Oscar Wilde

    Born in Ireland in 1856, Oscar Wilde was a noted essayist, playwright, fairy tale writer and poet, as well as an early leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His plays include: An Ideal Husband, Salome, A Woman of No Importance, and Lady Windermere's Fan. Among his best known stories are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost.

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    • 5/5

      Jul 24, 2018

      I seem to have quite the literary crush on Mr. Wilde. These essays charmed me. His thoughts on practical dress seem as relevant now as when he wrote them.

    Book preview

    Shorter Prose Pieces - Oscar Wilde

    PHRASES AND PHILOSOPHIES FOR THE USE OF THE YOUNG

    The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

    Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

    If the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty.

    Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.

    A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

    Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

    The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

    Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

    Dulness is the coming of age of seriousness.

    In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

    If one tells the truth one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

    Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.

    It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

    No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.

    Only the shallow know themselves.

    Time is waste of money.

    One should always be a little improbable.

    There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.

    The only way to atone for being occasionally a little overdressed is by being always absolutely overeducated.

    To be premature is to be perfect.

    Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

    Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

    A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.

    In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.

    Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.

    One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

    It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.

    Industry is the root of all ugliness.

    The ages live in history through their anachronisms.

    It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us.

    The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

    The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

    Only the great masters of style ever succeeded in being obscure.

    There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.

    To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

    MRS. LANGTRY AS HESTER GRAZEBROOK

    It is only in the best Greek gems, on the silver coins of Syracuse, or among the marble figures of the Parthenon frieze, that one can find the ideal representation of the marvellous beauty of that face which laughed through the leaves last night as Hester Grazebrook.

    Pure Greek it is, with the grave low forehead, the exquisitely arched brow; the noble chiselling of the mouth, shaped as if it were the mouthpiece of an instrument of music; the supreme and splendid curve of the cheek; the augustly pillared throat which bears it all: it is Greek, because the lines which compose it are so definite and so strong, and yet so exquisitely harmonized that the effect is one of simple loveliness purely: Greek, because its essence

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