There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.
Oscar Wilde

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
Oscar Wilde

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Oscar Wilde

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
Oscar Wilde

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
Oscar Wilde

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Oscar Wilde

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Oscar Wilde

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'
Edgar Allan Poe

The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
Edgar Allan Poe

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
Edgar Allan Poe

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?
Ernest Hemingway

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
Ernest Hemingway

We should reject big government and look inside ourselves for all the things that built this country into what it was.
Glenn Beck

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
John Adams

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
John Adams

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
John Adams

You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for.
Ted Turner

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.
Eleanor Roosevelt