Home > Work > The Importance of Being Earnest
1 " I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact. "
― Oscar Wilde , The Importance of Being Earnest
2 " I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. "
3 " In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. "
4 " Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read. "
5 " I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else. "
6 " The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. "
7 " The truth is rarely pure and never simple. "
8 " What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise "
9 " The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. "
10 " LADY BRACKNELLTo speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable. "
11 " I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. "
12 " Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.That is exactly what things were originally made for. "
13 " Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am? "
14 " Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating. "
15 " Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right. "
16 " LADY BRACKNELLThirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now. "
17 " Even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less then Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable. "
18 " JACKThat is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.ALGERNONThen your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.JACKThat, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.ALGERNONYes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time. "
19 " Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. "
20 " If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk. "