Almost all the lines in Earnest make good quotes. I picked 20 or so that I liked best. Interestingly, they're all from just five characters--Algernon, Jack, Cecily, Gwendolen, and Lady Bracknell.
- I don't play
accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with
wonderful expression.
- -Algernon, act 1. I like the sentiment.
- When one is in town one amuses
oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people.
- Jack, act 1.
- 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.
- Algernon, act 1.
- 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,
- Jack, act 1.
- 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.
- Gwendolen, act 1.
- I have always
been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know
either everything or nothing.
- Lady Bracknell, act 1.
- 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.
- Lady Bracknell, act 1. Quite an argument for homeschooling :)
- All women become like their mothers. That is their
tragedy. No man does. That's his.
- Algernon, act 1.
- The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to
her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.
- Algernon, act 1.
- It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't
mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.
- Algernon, act 1.
- I should have remembered that when
one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and
wholesome meals.
- Cecily, act 2.
- Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I
shouldn't know what to talk to him about.
- Cecily, act 2.
- And certainly
once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes
painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It
makes men so very attractive.
- Gwendolen, act 2.
- Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish
that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your
age.
- Gwendolen, act 2.
- I never travel without my
diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the
train.
- Gwendolen, act 2.
- I could deny it if I liked. I
could deny anything if I liked.
- Jack, act 2.
- Gwendolen - Cecily - it is very
painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first
time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful
position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of
the kind.
- Jack, act 2.
- 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.
- Algernon, act 2.
- Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean
poor Bunbury died this afternoon.
- Algernon, act 3.
- The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on
the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at
present.
- Lady Bracknell, act 3.
- London society is full of
women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice,
remained thirty-five for years.
- Lady Bracknell, act 3.
- And what makes his conduct all the
more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first
that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I
don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly
told him so myself yesterday afternoon.
- Jack, act 3.
- Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out
suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the
truth. Can you forgive me?
- Jack, act 3.