30 Oscar Wilde Quotes on Relationships

Oscar Wilde quotes on relationships

26. Tell me, when you are alone with him [ Max Beerbohm ] Sphinx, does he take off his face and reveal his mask?

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

58. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

61. The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

69. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

73. I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

77. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

79. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others.

82. The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failure.

86. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

88. To be in love is to surpass one's self.

95. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

96. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

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

112. Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

124. Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

148. Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.

150. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.

154. In married life, three is company, and two is none.

162. When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should say what she doesn't understand.

167. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

171. 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.

186. Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.

191. My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.

193. Now don't stir. I'll be back in five minutes. And don't fall into any temptations while I am away.

197. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

207. Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

226. A true friend stabs you in the front

229. Bigamy is having a wife too many, monogamy is the same.

241. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.