Earnest Quotes

I watched the Importance of being Earnest today.
Oscar Wilde is a literary genius.


Gwendolyn: In matters of utmost importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.

Jack: Algy, you're always talking nonsense.
Algy: It's better than listening to it.

Jack: How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't make out! It seems to me to be perfectly heartless...
Algy: I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them

(After Algy has finished playing the piano)
Algy: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
Lane: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.
Algy: I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression.


Jack: You don't think there's any chance of Gwendolyn becoming like her mother in about 150 years, do you Algy?
Algy: My dear fellow, all women become like their mothers, that's their tragedy. No man does, and that's his.

Lady Bracknell: I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delecate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did it would prove a serious threat to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grovesnor Square.

Jack: My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression.

Algy: It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

Gwendolyn: I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

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

Lady Bracknell: 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.