Oscar Wilde: Zitate auf Englisch (seite 7)

Quelle: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Kontext: Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Act I
Often quoted as "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."

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

Variante: I am not young enough to know everything.

The Portrait of Mr. W. H. http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/portrait/wh01.html (1889)

In a letter to Ada Leverson [Sphinx] recorded in her book Letters To The Sphinx From Oscar Wilde and Reminiscences of the Author (1930)

Variante: The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
Quelle: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Variante: I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

A version of this quote was published anonymously in an insurance magazine in 1908 https://books.google.com/books?id=S2JJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA375&dq=%22others+whenever+they+go%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja94i3iaXLAhUY7mMKHW5fAGIQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=%22others%20whenever%20they%20go%22&f=false. The earliest attribution to Wilde was in 1955 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22others+whenever+they+go%22+wilde#hl=en&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min:1900%2Ccd_max:1999&tbm=bks&q=%22others+whenever+they+go+oscar+wilde+jive%22; no source in Wilde's writings has been found.
Disputed

Quelle: The Picture of Dorian Gray

As quoted in Oscar Wilde : An Idler's Impression (1917) http://books.google.com/books?id=ddAVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=edgar+saltus+wilde&cd=3#v=snippet&q=satisfied&f=false by Edgar Saltus, p. 20

Quelle: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variante: Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six month.

Quelle: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Quelle: A Woman of No Importance