The Importance of Being Earnest

Listed below are some of the most witty and profound quotes from Oscar Wilde’s celebrated play The Importance Of Being Earnest.

‘Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?’
– Algernon, Act I

‘The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous.’
– Algernon, Act I

‘My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl.’
– Jack, Act I

‘The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain.’
– Algernon, Act I

‘An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.’
– Lady Bracknell, Act I

‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.’
– Algernon, Act I

‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!’
– Algernon, Act I

‘In married life, three is company, and two is none.’
– Algernon, Act I

‘It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.’
– Algernon, Act I

‘I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.’
– Lady Bracknell, Act I

‘No gentleman ever has any money.’
– Algernon, Act II

‘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.’
– Algernon, Act II

‘Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.’
– Lady Bracknell, Act III