Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any.

The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.

Then I am sorry I did not stay away longer I like being missed.

Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

Cecily. [To Gwendolen.] That certainly seems a satisfactory explanation, does it not? Gwendolen. Yes, dear, if you can believe him. Cecily. I don't. But that does not affect the wonderful beauty of his answer. Gwendolen. True. In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three.