王尔德（Oscar Wilde）的睿智妙语

【人物介绍】

奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde，1854年10月16日-1900年11月30日)，出生于都柏林，爱尔兰作家、诗人、剧作家，英国唯美主义艺术运动的倡导者，19世纪80年代美学运动的主力和90年代颓废派运动的先驱，19世纪英国最伟大的作家与艺术家之一。他的主要作品有《道林·格雷的画像》《温德密尔夫人的扇子》《莎乐美》《认真的重要性》《理想的丈夫》等。他被引用最多的名言之一是：“我们都生活在阴沟里，但仍有人仰望星空。” （We are all in the gutter，but some of us are looking at the stars.)

奥斯卡·王尔德

The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer. 
逢场作戏和终身不渝之间的区别只在于逢场作戏稍微长一些。 

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiveing one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what would calls a romance. 
爱，始于自我欺骗，终于欺骗他人。这就是所谓的浪漫。 

The very essence of romance is uncertainty. 
浪漫的精髓就在于它充满种种可能。 

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. 
人是理性动物，但当他被要求按照理性的要求行动时，可又要发脾气了。 

No man is rich enough to buy back his own past. 
没有人富有到可以赎回自己的过去。 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 
真相很少纯粹，也决不简单。 

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. 
爱自己是终身浪漫的开始。 

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. 
我们都生活在阴沟里，但仍有人仰望星空。 

Most people discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. 
大多数人发现他们从未后悔的事情只是他们的错误，但发现时已经太晚了。 

What is the chief cause of divorce? Marriage. 
什么是离婚的主要原因？结婚。 

When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love and wise already had one in reserve. 
当爱情走到尽头，软弱者哭个不停，有效率的马上去寻找下一个目标，而聪明的早就预备了下一个。 

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.
伟大的艺术家所看到的，从来都不是世界的本来面目。一旦他这么做了，他就不再是艺术家。

One can always be kind to people one cares nothing about. 
一个人总是可以善待他毫不在意的人。 

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. 
看似痛苦的试炼往往是伪装的祝福。  

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions. 
宗教一旦被证明是正确时就会消亡。科学便是已消亡宗教的记录。 

A poet can survive everything but a misprint. 
诗人可以从任何事件中存活，印刷错误除外。 

Only the shallow know themselves. 
只有浅薄的人才了解自己。 

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. 
摆脱诱惑的唯一方式是臣服于诱惑。

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. 
不满是个人或民族迈向进步的第一步。 

I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments. 
我喜欢自言自语，因为这样节约时间，而且不会有人跟我争论。 

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. 
格言是智慧耐用的替代品。 

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. 
每个圣人都有过去，每个罪人都有未来。 

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. 
生活是世上最罕见的事情，大多数人只是存在，仅此而已。 

I have nothing to declare except my genius. 
除了我的天才，我没什么好申报的。 

I like men who have a future and women who have a past. 
我喜欢有未来的男人和有过去的女人。 

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals. 
社会仅仅以一种精神概念而存在，真实世界中只有个体存在。 

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. 
什么是愤世嫉俗？一个知道所有东西价格、却不知道任何东西价值的人。 

I don't want to earn my living; I want to live. 
我不想谋生；我想生活。 

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. 
世上只有一件事比被人议论更糟糕，那就是没有人议论你。  

Life is never fair...And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not. 
生活从来不是公平的……而且，或许对我们大多数人来说，这是件好事。 

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being. 
如果男人坚持把她当作一个完全正常的人，女人如何能期望会从他那里获得幸福。 

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities. 
奚落是庸才对天才的颂歌。 

A true friend stabs you in the front. 
真朋友才会当面中伤你。 

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. 
平常的财宝会被偷走，而真正的财富则不会。你灵魂里无限珍贵的东西是无法被夺走的。 

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. 
永远宽恕你的敌人，没有什么能比这个更让他们恼怒的了。 

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them. 
孩子最初爱他们父母，等大一些他们评判父母；然后有些时候，他们原谅父母。 

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. 
生活中只有两种悲剧：一个是没有得到我们想要的，另外一个是得到我们想要的。 

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally. 
绅士就是从不无心伤害别人感觉的人。 

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative. 
谈论天气是无趣人类最后的避难所。 

One's real life is often the life that one does not lead. 
真实生活就通常就是我们无法掌控的生活。 

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography. 
现在每个伟人都有自己的信徒，而他们的传记总由叛徒来写。 

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious; both are disappointed. 
男人因疲倦而结婚，女人因好奇而结婚；最终他们都会失望。 

The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married. 
已婚者的快乐来自那些他没有娶的人。 

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional. 
情感的好处就是让我们引入歧途，而科学的好处是不感情用事。 

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. 
除了感官，什么也不能治灵魂的创痛，同样，感官的饥渴也只有灵魂解除得了。 

A good name, like good will, is got by many action and lost by one. 
一个好的名声，就像善意一样，得在多举，失在一举。 

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. 
女人是用来被爱的，不是用来被理解的。 

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life. 
艺术并非模仿生活，而是生活在模仿艺术。 

Everyone is born king, and most people die in exile. 
每个人生来都是君王，但大多数在流亡中死去。 

When I was young, I used to think that money was the most important thing in life, now that I am old, I know it is. 
我年青时以为金钱至上，而今年事已迈，发现果真如此。 

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. 
一个思想若称不上危险，那么它就不值得被称作思想。 

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. 
每次人们赞同我的时候，我都觉得自己一定错了。 
　　 
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes. 
每个人犯了错误，都自称是经验。  
　　 
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction. 
男人的面孔是他的自传，女人的面容是她的幻想作品。 
　　 
There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband. 
女人的生活中只有一个真正的悲剧：她总在缅怀过去，却必须活在未来。 

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow. 
我们教给人们如何记忆，却从来不教他们如何成长。 

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success. 
任何人都能对朋友的不幸感到同情，但要消受一个春风得意的朋友，则需要非常优良的天性。 

If a woman can't make her mistakes charming, she is only a female.
如果一个女人不能让她犯的错误变得迷人，她就只是一个雌性动物。 

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. 
不够真诚是危险的，太真诚则绝对是致命的。 

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies. 
一个人在选择他的敌人时，再小心也不为过。 

Bad artists always admire each other's work. 
糟糕的画家总是欣赏彼此的作品。 

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. 
男女之间不可能存在友谊，有的只是爱恨情仇。 

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. 
良心和怯懦其实是一回事。 

Dammit sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't be always living for pleasure. 
该死，先生，结婚是你的职责，你不能总是逍遥快活。 

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. 
教育是一件可敬的事，但要时刻牢记，没有什么值得知道的事是教得会的。 

I am not young enough to know everything. 
我没那么年轻，不足以知道一切。 

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I’m saying. 
我简直太聪明了，有时连我自己都不知道自己在说什么。 

I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me. 
我喜欢对一堵墙说话，世界上只有它不会反驳我。 

I love acting. It is so much more real than life. 
我喜欢看戏。与人生相比，戏剧更加真实。 

I think that God, in creating Man, somewhat overestimated his ability. 
我想，上帝在创造人类时高估了他的能力。 

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. 
我整个早上都在校对自己的一首诗，我去掉了一个逗号。下午我又把它加上去了。 

Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is gone. 
无知就像是一朵精致的花朵：摸一下，它就消失了。 

It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. 
只有失智者才会争论。 

It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear. 
来自敌人的困难可以忍，来自朋友的成功则无可忍。 

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. 
结婚是想象战胜了理智，再婚是希望战胜了经验。  

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything. 
一个人决不应该相信说出自己真实年龄的女人。如果她把这都说出来了，那她什么都会说。

The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden…It ends with Revelations. 
《生命之书》始于一座花园里的一男一女……它最后以《启示录》告终。 

The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. 
报纸和文学的区别是，报纸没法读，而文学则没人读。 

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself. 
对于忠告，你所能做的，就是把它奉送给别人，忠告从来就不是给自己准备的。 

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster. 
演出相当成功，但观众则是一场灾难。 

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last. 
悬念是可怕的。我希望它一直延续下去。 

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. 
所有糟糕的诗歌都源于真情实感。自然化的作品其内涵是显而易见的，而显而易见的内涵并不艺术。 

Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes. 
恭维话从来没有让女人缴械，但可以让男人缴械。这就是性别差异。 

Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. 
女人代表着物质战胜了理智，正如男人代表着理智战胜了道德。 

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. 
一个人倘若不为自己思考，那就从未思考过。 

Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot. 
年轻人想有信仰，但他们却没有；老年人不想有信仰，但却办不到。 

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. 
雄心壮志是失败最后的避难所。 

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. 
说真话的人迟早要被揭穿。 

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