The Importance of Being Earnest quotes

I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play accurately—anyone can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression.

As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?

Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.

I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?

I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present.

I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

Languidly. I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.

Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax.

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

They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.

Pulling off his gloves.

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

And who are the people you amuse?

I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over.

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.

Oh! 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.

I am quite aware of the fact, and I don’t propose to discuss modern culture. It isn’t the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back.

Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

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.

Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

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

That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.

I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you.

Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.

You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury.

A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won’t want to know Bunbury.

Then your wife will.

You don’t seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.

Sententiously. That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.

Sententiously. That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.

Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

For heaven’s sake, don’t try to be cynical. It’s perfectly easy to be cynical.

For heaven’s sake, don’t try to be cynical. It’s perfectly easy to be cynical.

My dear fellow, it isn’t easy to be anything nowadays. There’s such a lot of beastly competition about.

The sound of an electric bell is heard. Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.

Yes, but you must be serious about it.

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.

Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid.

Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life.

I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice … as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr.

I’ll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you he’ll be all right by Saturday. Of course the music is a great difficulty.

You see, if one plays good music, people don’t listen, and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

But I’ll run over the programme I’ve drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a moment.

Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing.

Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else.

And that makes me so nervous.

I would certainly advise you to do so.

Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.

Nervously. Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl … I have ever met since … I met you.

Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact.

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

It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself … And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.

I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate 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 danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?

I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance.

Ignorance is like a delicate 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 danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

I have lost both my parents.

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

Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness.

I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.

Well, I don’t see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the handbag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all.

Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

It isn’t!

Well, I won’t argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.

That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself … A pause. You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself … A pause. You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.

It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.

You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

In a very patronising manner. My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

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.

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

Oh! one doesn’t blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis’s, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?

Well, what shall we do?

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

Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out.

If you don’t take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a serious scrape some day.

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.

Oh, that’s nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.

As a man sows so let him reap. You must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don’t see why you should keep a diary at all.

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should probably forget all about them.

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should probably forget all about them.

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened.

I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.

Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel ever published?

Merriman

I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like everyone else.

Enter Algernon, very gay and debonnair. He does!

Oh, well! The accounts I have received of Australia and the next world, are not particularly encouraging. This world is good enough for me, cousin Cecily.

Yes, but are you good enough for it?

I’m afraid I’m not that. That is why I want you to reform me. You might make that your mission, if you don’t mind, cousin Cecily.

Then Miss Prism is a shortsighted old lady. Cecily puts the rose in his buttonhole. You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.

Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.

They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.

Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.

They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.

Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.

Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

They pass into the house. Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return.

But is a man not equally attractive when married?

No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.

And often, I’ve been told, not even to her.

No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.

And often, I’ve been told, not even to her.

That depends on the intellectual sympathies of the woman. Maturity can always be depended on. Ripeness can be trusted. Young women are green. Dr. Chasuble starts. I spoke horticulturally. My metaphor was drawn from fruits. But where is Cecily?

Your duty as a gentleman calls you back.

My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.

I can quite understand that.

Well, at any rate, that is better than being always overdressed as you are.

If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being always immensely overeducated.

Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town.

I am afraid so. It’s a very painful parting.

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity.

But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

Somewhat taken aback. Ahem! Ahem!

Oh, don’t cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don’t know how to spell a cough.

Writes as Algernon speaks.

Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the entry if you like. Shows diary.

“Today I broke off my engagement with Ernest. I feel it is better to do so. The weather still continues charming.”

But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming.

But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming.

It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn’t been broken off at least once.

But I forgave you before the week was out.

Ahem! Cecily! Picking up hat. Your Rector here is, I suppose, thoroughly experienced in the practice of all the rites and ceremonials of the Church?

Oh, yes. Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man. He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.

I must see him at once on a most important christening—I mean on most important business.

Examines diary through her lorgnette carefully. It is certainly very curious, for he asked me to be his wife yesterday afternoon at 5:30. If you would care to verify the incident, pray do so. Produces diary of her own.

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

I am so sorry, dear Cecily, if it is any disappointment to you, but I am afraid I have the prior claim.

Satirically.

I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

Enter Merriman, followed by the footman. He carries a salver, table cloth, and plate stand. Cecily is about to retort. The presence of the servants exercises a restraining influence, under which both girls chafe.

I had no idea there were any flowers in the country.

Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London.

Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country, if anybody who is anybody does. The country always bores me to death.

How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.

Well, I can’t 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.

I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.

When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me.

Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. Rising.

It usen’t to be, I know—but I daresay it is now.

Science is always making wonderful improvements in things.

Picking up the muffin-dish. Oh, that is nonsense; you are always talking nonsense.

True.

In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

Mr. Worthing, what explanation can you offer to me for pretending to have a brother? Was it in order that you might have an opportunity of coming up to town to see me as often as possible?

To Algernon. To please me you are ready to face this fearful ordeal?

How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us.

We are. Clasps hands with Algernon.

I think some preliminary inquiry on my part would not be out of place. Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all connected with any of the larger railway stations in London? I merely desire information.

Until yesterday I had no idea that there were any families or persons whose origin was a Terminus.

Jack looks perfectly furious, but restrains himself.

That sounds not unsatisfactory.

Three addresses always inspire confidence, even in tradesmen.

But what proof have I of their authenticity?

Sitting down again. A moment, Mr. Worthing. A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her.

Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, any of the qualities that last, and improve with time. We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.

To Cecily. Come over here, dear. Cecily goes across. Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left it. But we can soon alter all that.

Then bends, with a practised smile, to Cecily. Kindly turn round, sweet child. Cecily turns completely round. No, the side view is what I want. Cecily presents her profile. Yes, quite as I expected. There are distinct social possibilities in your profile.

The two weak points in our age are its want of principle and its want of profile.

The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present. Algernon!

Cecily presents her profile. Yes, quite as I expected. There are distinct social possibilities in your profile. The two weak points in our age are its want of principle and its want of profile. The chin a little higher, dear.

Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn.

They are worn very high, just at present. Algernon!

Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don’t care twopence about social possibilities.

Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

To Cecily. Dear child, of course you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon. But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind.

Upon what grounds may I ask? Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man.

He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?

It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point.

To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now.

I see no reason why our dear Cecily should not be even still more attractive at the age you mention than she is at present. There will be a large accumulation of property.

Rising and drawing herself up. You must be quite aware that what you propose is out of the question.

Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to.

That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen. Algernon, of course, can choose for himself. Pulls out her watch. Come, dear, Gwendolen rises we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.

This noise is extremely unpleasant. It sounds as if he was having an argument.

I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.

Looking up. It has stopped now. The noise is redoubled.

I wish he would arrive at some conclusion.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Enter Jack with a handbag of black leather in his hand.