Today is Oscar Wilde's birthday, and here are 20 of our favourite quotes from one of literature's greatest and most charismatic figures.
Wilde is a revered figure in Dublin, where a statue of him in a luxurious pose rests on a boulder in the park at Merrion Square, where he was born in 1854 - but also worldwide.
The wit and charm and that he put into his novels, poems and plays have created a following few writers can match when it comes to being readily quoted. Let us know what you think of our top 20 as listed below.
1. "For there is one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
2. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
3. "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
4. “When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
5. “I can resist anything except temptation.”
6. "Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul"
7. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
8. “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
Oscar Wilde was born #onthisday in 1854. Here's a caricature portrait of the great writer by Alfred Bryan pic.twitter.com/Odi5rD7yRY
— British Museum (@britishmuseum) October 16, 2015
9. “The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
10. “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
11. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
12. "“Experience is merely the name men give to their mistakes.”
Happy birthday #OscarWilde — 161 today.
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) October 16, 2015
Stephen Fry, who played the eponymous character in the 1997 movie Wilde, pays his own tribute.
13. “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
14. “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”
15. “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
16. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
17. "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
18. “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
19. "I have nothing to declare, except my genius."
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