A Woman of No Importance quotes

To Sir John. Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle—

He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays.

But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.

Of course I am. It means everything to me—things that were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope’s reach now.

Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.

I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But that may not be true.

I assure you, dear, that the country has not that effect at all. Why, it was from Melthorpe, which is only two miles from here, that Lady Belton eloped with Lord Fethersdale. I remember the occurrence perfectly.

Poor Lord Belton died three days afterwards of joy, or gout. I forget which.

We had a large party staying here at the time, so we were all very much interested in the whole affair.

I remember the occurrence perfectly. Poor Lord Belton died three days afterwards of joy, or gout. I forget which. We had a large party staying here at the time, so we were all very much interested in the whole affair.

I think to elope is cowardly. It’s running away from danger. And danger has become so rare in modern life.

As far as I can make out, the young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire.

As far as I can make out, the young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire.

The one advantage of playing with fire, Lady Caroline, is that one never gets even singed. It is the people who don’t know how to play with it who get burned up.

Yes; I see that. It is very, very helpful.

Everyone I know says you are very, very wicked.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.

Dear Lord Illingworth is quite hopeless, Lady Stutfield. I have given up trying to reform him. It would take a Public Company with a Board of Directors and a paid Secretary to do that. But you have the secretary already, Lord Illingworth, haven’t you?

It would take a Public Company with a Board of Directors and a paid Secretary to do that. But you have the secretary already, Lord Illingworth, haven’t you? Gerald Arbuthnot has told us of his good fortune; it is really most kind of you.

Oh, don’t say that, Lady Hunstanton. Kind is a dreadful word.

I took a great fancy to young Arbuthnot the moment I met him, and he’ll be of considerable use to me in something I am foolish enough to think of doing.

Far too pretty. These American girls carry off all the good matches. Why can’t they stay in their own country? They are always telling us it is the Paradise of women.

It is, Lady Caroline. That is why, like Eve, they are so extremely anxious to get out of it.

Who are Miss Worsley’s parents?

Who are Miss Worsley’s parents?

American women are wonderfully clever in concealing their parents.

My dear Lord Illingworth, what do you mean? Miss Worsley, Caroline, is an orphan. Her father was a very wealthy millionaire or philanthropist, or both, I believe, who entertained my son quite hospitably, when he visited Boston.

How very singular! … Well, from whatever source her large fortune came, I have a great esteem for Miss Worsley. She dresses exceedingly well. All Americans do dress well. They get their clothes in Paris.

They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.

Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?

I am afraid you don’t appreciate America, Lord Illingworth. It is a very remarkable country, especially considering its youth.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.

To hear them talk one would imagine they were in their first childhood. As far as civilisation goes they are in their second.

Do you take no side then in modern politics, Lord Illingworth?

One should never take sides in anything, Mr. Kelvil. Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore.

However, the House of Commons really does very little harm. You can’t make people good by Act of Parliament—that is something.

Still our East End is a very important problem.

Quite so. It is the problem of slavery. And we are trying to solve it by amusing the slaves.

Certainly, a great deal may be done by means of cheap entertainments, as you say, Lord Illingworth. Dear Dr. Daubeny, our rector here, provides, with the assistance of his curates, really admirable recreations for the poor during the winter.

May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?

A much better institution, of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.

Are you serious in putting forward such a view?

Quite serious, Mr. Kelvil. To Mrs. Allonby. Vulgar habit that is people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not.

Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been.

It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. The only serious form of intellect I know is the British intellect. And on the British intellect the illiterates play the drum.

Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that one should believe evil of everyone?

I think it is much safer to do so, Lady Stutfield. Until, of course, people are found out to be good. But that requires a great deal of investigation nowadays.

But there is so much unkind scandal in modern life.

To Lord Alfred. How very, very charming those gold-tipped cigarettes of yours are, Lord Alfred.

They are awfully expensive. I can only afford them when I’m in debt.

It must be terribly, terribly distressing to be in debt.

Enter Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby.

Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!

Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people’s husbands.

Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!

Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people’s husbands.

I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!

So much marriage is certainly not becoming.

Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.

Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?

Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant.

Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.

Or the want of it in the man.

And that should be man?

Women kneel so gracefully; men don’t.

You are thinking of Lady Stutfield!

Don’t find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?

I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.

I think the stupid people talk a great deal.

She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It was most annoying.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.

She is a Puritan besides—

What do you call a bad man?

The sort of man who admires innocence.

Oh! the sort of woman a man never gets tired of.

The sort of man who admires innocence.

Oh! the sort of woman a man never gets tired of.

Define us as a sex.

Don’t you know that I always succeed in whatever I try?

I am sorry to hear it. We women adore failures. They lean on us.

You worship successes. You cling to them.

You worship successes. You cling to them.

We are the laurels to hide their baldness.

And they need you always, except at the moment of triumph.

Ah, don’t be too conceited about them. You may lose them as you grow old.

I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.

And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy.

I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.

And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy.

Its comedy also, sometimes. But what is the mysterious reason why you will always like me?

We should each have survived.

One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.

Have you tried a good reputation?

Do you like such simple pleasures?

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.

You fence divinely. But the button has come off your foil.

I have still the mask.

Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot’s letter on table, and takes it up and looks at envelope. What a curious handwriting! It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years ago.

Oh! no one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance.

Throws letter down, and passes up the steps of the terrace with Mrs. Allonby. They smile at each other.

Persecute us? I wish they did.

The annoying thing is that the wretches can be perfectly happy without us.

That is why I think it is every woman’s duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except during this short breathing space after dinner; without which I believe we poor women would be absolutely worn to shadows.

Well, I suppose the type of husband has completely changed since my young days, but I’m bound to state that poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as good as gold.

Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I’m tired of meeting him.

But you renew him from time to time, don’t you?

Have you never forgiven him then? How sad that seems! But all life is very, very sad, is it not?

Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d’heure made up of exquisite moments.

Yes, there are moments, certainly. But was it something very, very wrong that Mr. Allonby did? Did he become angry with you, and say anything that was unkind or true?

Unfortunately, however, I made no enquiries of any kind till after I had been actually married four or five months. I found out then that what he had told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so absolutely uninteresting.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity.

We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance.

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things.

What we like is to be a man’s last romance.

I see what you mean. It’s very, very beautiful.

My dear child, you don’t mean to tell me that you won’t forgive your husband because he never loved anyone else? Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.

Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.

They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don’t think the frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it.

More marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband than by anything else.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being?

Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years. He can’t help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is very different.

We have always been picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense.

We saw its dangers from the first.

He would probably be extremely realistic.

The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children.

He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions.

He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

But how could he do both, dear?

He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgiveable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t want.

As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills and compliments.

He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone.

… behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.

How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.

Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a number of details that are so very, very important.

Oh! … yes. I see that. It is very, very helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal Man? Or are there more than one?

There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.

Going over to her. What has happened? Do tell me.

To Lady Stutfield. What nonsense! They have their mothers and their manners.

The English aristocracy supply us with our curiosities, Lady Caroline. They are sent over to us every summer, regularly, in the steamers, and propose to us the day after they land.

As for ruins, we are trying to build up something that will last longer than brick or stone. Gets up to take her fan from table.

You have lost life’s secret. Oh, your English society seems to me shallow, selfish, foolish. It has blinded its eyes, and stopped its ears.

It lies like a leper in purple. It sits like a dead thing smeared with gold.

It is all wrong, all wrong.

Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lady Hunstanton.

A man with a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere.

No dinner-party is complete without him. What of those whose ruin is due to him? They are outcasts. They are nameless. If you met them in the street you would turn your head away. I don’t complain of their punishment.

Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free.

Don’t have one law for men and another for women.

You are unjust to women in England.

With the greatest pleasure. To Mrs. Allonby. I’ll be back in a moment. People’s mothers always bore me to death.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.

No man does. That is his.

With the greatest pleasure. To Mrs. Allonby. I’ll be back in a moment. People’s mothers always bore me to death. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.

No man does. That is his.

What a delightful mood you are in tonight! Turns round and goes across with Gerald to Mrs. Arbuthnot. When he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn towards Gerald.

So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very proud of him. He is a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why Arbuthnot, Rachel?

One name is as good as another, when one has no right to any name.

I suppose so—but why Gerald?

I had no expectations then. And besides, Rachel, I wasn’t much older than you were. I was only twenty-two. I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your father’s garden.

When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.

My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year. But you wouldn’t take anything.

I wouldn’t have accepted a penny from her. Your father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.

Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.

Of course, I was influenced by my mother. Every man is when he is young.

My son Lord Illingworth shrugs his shoulders—to go away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who has tainted every moment of my days? You don’t realise what my past has been in suffering and in shame.

My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s future considerably more important than your past.

Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.

My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s future considerably more important than your past.

Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.

That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time. But don’t let us have a scene.

Of course, I made him so.

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

But I did not leave him with a mere longing for things he could not get. No, I made him a charming offer. He jumped at it, I need hardly say. Any young man would.

Quite so. And what is the result? You have educated him to be your judge if he ever finds you out. And a bitter, an unjust judge he will be to you. Don’t be deceived, Rachel.

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

George, don’t take my son away from me. I have had twenty years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and success.

Remember that you’ve got on your side the most wonderful thing in the world—youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in life’s lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it.

Everyone is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings.

To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do—except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.

Not to be put off with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have to do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society. A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.

I should like to wear nice things awfully, but I have always been told that a man should not think too much about his clothes.

People nowadays are so absolutely superficial that they don’t understand the philosophy of the superficial. By the way, Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better. Sentiment is all very well for the buttonhole. But the essential thing for a necktie is style.

A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.

Laughing. I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I don’t know how to talk.

Laughing. I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I don’t know how to talk.

Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

But it is very difficult to get into society isn’t it?

It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?

You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems.

If you want to know what a woman really means—which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do—look at her, don’t listen to her.

How then can women have so much power as you say they have?

The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

But haven’t women got a refining influence?

But haven’t women got a refining influence?

Nothing refines but the intellect.

Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren’t there?

Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren’t there?

Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.

But there are good women in society, aren’t there?

One should never tell them so, they’d all become good at once. Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex.

Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?

You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

But don’t you think one can be happy when one is married?

But if one is in love?

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?

Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?

When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others.

That is what the world calls a romance. But a really grande passion is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.

And after all, it may be merely the fancy of a drowning person.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Ah! that quite does for me. I haven’t a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can’t follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid.

Ah! that quite does for me. I haven’t a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can’t follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid.

To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.

I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in any of his opinions.

I don’t intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan’t. It would be most inconvenient.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.

Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.

The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.

There is no secret of life. Life’s aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough.

I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.

Shakes her fan at him. I don’t know how it is, dear Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said today seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.

All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.

I don’t understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women thinking too much.

But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.

Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.

I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I’m beginning to forget everything. It’s a great misfortune.

It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton.

No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness.

One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.

It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.

How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue.

You have the most comforting views of life.

It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.

Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.

Then it is in love with you.

That’s just the word, dear; that just describes it. One feels your mother’s good influence in everything she has about her, Gerald.

Lord Illingworth says that all influence is bad, but that a good influence is the worst in the world.

When Lord Illingworth knows Mrs. Arbuthnot better he will change his mind. I must certainly bring him here.

But then he was so very particular. He wouldn’t let me know any of his men friends, except those who were over seventy, like poor Lord Ashton: who afterwards, by the way, was brought into the Divorce Court. A most unfortunate case.

I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.

I think seventy an ideal age for a man.

I was very young at the time. We men know life too early.

And we women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women.

A pause.

You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will.

I have two passions, Lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other.

What sort of love is that which needs to have hate as its brother?