Oscar Wilde Quotes - 125 quotes

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Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish poet and playwright, known for his sharp humor and flamboyant style. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde was the son of Sir William Wilde, a renowned surgeon, and Jane Wilde, a poet and nationalist. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and later at Magdalen... show more

quote icon No man is rich enough to buy back his own past.

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quote icon This too I know—and wise it were If each could know the same— That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

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quote icon Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

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quote icon a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower

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quote icon The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked.

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quote icon Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

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quote icon To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

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quote icon I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

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quote icon And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

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quote icon Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.

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quote icon Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.

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quote icon A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

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quote icon The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble.

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quote icon Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

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quote icon A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

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quote icon Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

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quote icon And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

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quote icon All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

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quote icon Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.

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quote icon Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

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quote icon I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

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quote icon People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately...

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quote icon It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

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quote icon I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

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quote icon Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.

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quote icon An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

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quote icon Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.

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quote icon To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.

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quote icon There are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.

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quote icon Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.

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quote icon Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

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quote icon Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name.

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quote icon [E]verybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

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quote icon If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture...In a house, we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned for our use and our pleasure.

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quote icon No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

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quote icon The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

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quote icon Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

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quote icon Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.

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quote icon The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

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quote icon It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.

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quote icon There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.

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quote icon As for modern Journalism, its not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.

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quote icon It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

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quote icon Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

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quote icon As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

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quote icon Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

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quote icon Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organize the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force.

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quote icon A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

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quote icon Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

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quote icon Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

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quote icon Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation.

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quote icon For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses.

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quote icon So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.

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quote icon Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.

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quote icon To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

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quote icon Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

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quote icon The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.

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quote icon Its value will not be measured by material things.

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quote icon 'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.

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quote icon Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you.

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quote icon There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.

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quote icon The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever.

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quote icon Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

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quote icon When private property is abolished there will be no necessity for crime, no demand for it; it will cease to exist.

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quote icon The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.

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quote icon A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.

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quote icon But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

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quote icon The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

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quote icon Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

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quote icon An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft.

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quote icon They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.

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quote icon If a man approaches a work of art with any desire to exercise authority over it and the artist, he approaches it in such a spirit that he cannot receive any artistic impression from it at all. The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art. The spectator is to be receptive. He is to be the violin on which the master is to play.

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quote icon Any attempt to extend the subject matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter. The public dislike novelty because they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses.

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quote icon In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them.

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quote icon And it is only fair to state, with regard to modern journalists, that they always apologise to one in private for what they have written against one in public.

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quote icon In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.

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quote icon There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

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quote icon A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

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quote icon Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval.

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quote icon When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.

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quote icon But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle? And when these four are joined together they make a terrible force, and constitute the new authority.

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quote icon In America, the President reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately, in America journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt, people are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. but it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated.

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quote icon The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesmanlike habits, supplies their demands.

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quote icon I can resist everything except temptation.

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quote icon My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.

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quote icon We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

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quote icon In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

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quote icon A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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quote icon Kelvil: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons? Lord Illingworth: A much better institution of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

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quote icon The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life.

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quote icon Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

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quote icon The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future

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quote icon Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

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quote icon To be really medieval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

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quote icon Time is a waste of money.

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

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quote icon Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

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quote icon Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

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quote icon I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

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quote icon To 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.

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quote icon Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.

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quote icon Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.

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quote icon When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.

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quote icon A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.

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quote icon If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.

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quote icon I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

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quote icon Only good questions deserve good answers.

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quote icon The supreme vice is shallowness.

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quote icon We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humor. We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.

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quote icon Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

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quote icon Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

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quote icon For a sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.

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quote icon I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

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quote icon For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die.

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quote icon How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

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quote icon To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

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quote icon What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

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quote icon A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

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quote icon I am not young enough to know everything.

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quote icon Solo le persone superficiali non giudicano dalle apparenze.

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quote icon You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.

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quote icon La vita imita l'arte più di quanto l'arte non imiti la vita.

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quote icon A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

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quote icon A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

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quote icon Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.

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