And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.Literary and Other Notes I, Woman’s World (November 1887)
奥斯卡·王尔德

英国作家、诗人、散文家

A poet can service everything but a misprint.

诗人可以拯救一切除了印刷错误。

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has to go.

我和我的墙纸即将展开生死决斗,所以我们中的一个必须得走。

I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.

我喜欢自言自语,因为这样节约时间,而且不会有人跟我争论。

Why was I born with such contemporaries

为什么我会和这样同时代的人一块出生呢?

Only the shallow know themselves.

只有浅薄的人才了解自己。

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

艺术并非模仿生活,而是生活在模仿艺术。

I like men who have a future and women who have a past

我喜欢有未来的男人和有过去的女人。

One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.

真实生活就通常就是我们无法掌控的生活。

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

失去一个父母可以看成是一种不幸;失去双亲看上去就像是一种粗心了。

A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

男人的面孔是他的自传,女人的面容是她的幻想作品。

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

悲观主义者是这种人:当他可以从两种罪恶中选择时,他把两种都选了。

Like dear St Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.

就像亲爱的圣芳济一样,我也和贫穷联姻,但我的婚姻并不成功。

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

除了感官,什么也不能治灵魂的创痛,同样,感官的饥渴也只有灵魂解除得了。

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

争论是俗不可耐的,因为道德社会里每个人都持完全相同的观点。