The collection / 804 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

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

Oscar Wilde / quote

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02Undated

The heart was made to be broken.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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03Undated

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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04Undated

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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05Undated

Who, being loved, is poor?

Oscar Wilde / quote

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06Undated

Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be heardSome do it with a bitter lookSome with a flattering wordThe coward does it with a kissThe brave man with a sword

Oscar Wilde / quote

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07Undated

One should always be in love. That's the reason one should never marry.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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08Undated

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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09Undated

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 a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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10Undated

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 / quote

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11Undated

Hearts Live By Being Wounded

Oscar Wilde / quote

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12Undated

It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love

Oscar Wilde / quote

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13Undated

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid

Oscar Wilde / quote

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14Undated

A kiss may ruin a human life

Oscar Wilde / quote

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15Undated

My life-my whole life- take it, and do with it what you will. I love you-love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly,madly!You didn't know it then-you know it now.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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16Undated

When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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17Undated

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

Oscar Wilde / quote

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18Undated

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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19Undated

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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20Undated

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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21Undated

I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!

Oscar Wilde / quote

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22Undated

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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23Undated

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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24Undated

To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.

Oscar Wilde / quote

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