All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital. - Oscar Wilde
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. - Oscar Wilde
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. - Oscar Wilde
I have a dining room done in different shades of white, with white cushions embroidered in yellow silk: the effect is absolutely delightful and the room beautiful. - Oscar Wilde
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. - Oscar Wilde
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. - Oscar Wilde
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything. - Oscar Wilde
I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children. - Oscar Wilde
If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. - Oscar Wilde
