王尔德（oscar wilde，1854-1900）不仅是诗人、小说家，剧作家、批评家，而且是有史以来敢于承认自己是天才的天才之一。他在进纽约海关时对海关官员说： “除了天才之外，我没有什么可申报的。”（“i have nothing to declare except my genius.”）
a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
愤世嫉俗者是一个知道所有东西的价格、却不知道它们的价值的人。
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a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
梦想家只能在月光下找到自己的路，他的惩罚是第一个看见黎明。
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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。
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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。
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a poet can survive everything but a misprint.
一个诗人什么都可以容忍，印刷错误除外。
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all women become like their mothers. that is their tragedy. no man does. that's his.
所有女人都会变得像她们的母亲一样，这是女人的悲剧。但没有男人变得像他们的父亲，这是男人的悲剧。
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always forgive your enemies. nothing annoys them so much.
永远要宽恕你的敌人。没有什么比这更能让他们心烦的了。
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america is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
美国是唯一一个直接从野蛮进入颓废、中间没有经过文明阶段的社会。
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arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
要避免争论，争论总是俗不可耐，而且常常令人信服。
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as long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
只要一个女人看上去比她自己的女儿小十岁，她就一定会心满意足。
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bad artists always admire each other's work.
糟糕的画家总是欣赏彼此的作品。
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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。
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conscience and cowardice are really the same things.
良心和怯懦其实是一回事。
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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。
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democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
民主就是指人民用人民的大头棒打击人民。
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don't give a woman advice; one should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening.
不要给女人忠告；决不要给女人任何她晚上不能穿戴的东西。
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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。
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experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
经验是一个人给自己所犯的错误取的名字。
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fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
时装丑陋得完全令人无法容忍，以至于我们必须每6个月就改变它的样式。
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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.
女人如何能期望会从男人那里获得幸福，如果他坚持把她当作一个完全正常的人。
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i adore political parties. they are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.
我喜欢政治晚会，这是唯一人们不谈政治的地方。
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i am not young enough to know everything.
我还没有年轻到什么都懂的地步。
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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。
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i can resist everything except temptation.
我可以抗拒一切，诱惑除外。
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i have made an important discovery…that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication.
我有一个重大发现——如果摄入足量酒精，就会产生各种陶醉的效果。
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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。
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i love acting. it is so much more real than life.
我喜欢演戏。与人生相比，演戏更真实。
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i often take exercise. why only yesterday i had breakfast in bed.
我经常锻炼。只是昨天我是在床上吃的早饭。
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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。
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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。下午我又把它加了上去。
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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。
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in this world there are only two tragedies. one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
世界上只有两种悲剧，一种是一个人没有得到他想要的，另一种是他得到了。
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it is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
这是一件很悲哀的事——如今几乎没有无用的信息。
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it is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
美丽要比善良好，善良要比难看强。
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it is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
所有人类的重大问题都有一个共同点：没有点幽默和疯狂是没办法解决的。
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it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.
争论者损失的只是智力。
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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。
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life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.
人生就是一件蠢事追着另一件蠢事而来，而爱情则是两个蠢东西追来追去。
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like dear st francis of assisi i am wedded to poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.
就像亲爱的圣芳济一样，我也和贫穷联姻，但我的婚姻并不成功。
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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。
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music makes one feel so romantic—at least it always gets on one's nerves, which is the same thing nowadays.
音乐让人感觉非常浪漫，至少让人感觉不安，如今两者是一回事。
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no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. it looks so calculating.
没有女人应该对她的年龄十分准确。这显得有些精于算计。
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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。
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please do not shoot the pianist. he is doing his best.
请别开枪打死那个钢琴师，他已经尽力了。
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science is the record of dead religions.
科学是死去的宗教的记录。
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tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that when i ask for a watercress sandwich i do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.
请转告我对这家饭店厨师的赞誉，这是全世界最糟糕的三明治了，还有，我点的是豆瓣菜三明治，我并不是要面包片中夹一块菜田。
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the basis of optimism is sheer terror.
乐观的基础完全是恐惧。
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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。
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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。
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the only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future.
圣人和罪人的唯一区别是，每一个圣人都有过去，而每一个罪人都有未来。
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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。
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the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
摆脱诱惑的唯一方法是屈服于它。
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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。
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the public is wonderfully tolerant. it forgives everything except genius.
公众极其宽容，他们可以宽容一切，天才除外。
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there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
世界上只有一件比被人谈论更糟糕的事，那就是没人谈论你。
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thirty five is a very attractive age; london society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years.
三十五岁是一个非常有吸引力的年龄；伦敦社交圈内满是这样好多年一直保持三十五岁的女人，她们可以自由地挑来选去。
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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。
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time is a waste of money.
时间是一种对金钱的浪费。
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to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
失去一个父母可以看成是一种不幸；失去双亲看上去就像是一种粗心了。
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to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
爱自己就是开始一场延续一生的罗曼史。
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true friends stab you in the front.
当面扎刀的是真朋友。
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when good americans die they go to paris. when bad americans die they go to america.
当美国的好人死了，他们就去巴黎。当美国的坏蛋死了，他们就去美国。
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all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
所有糟糕的诗歌都源于真情实感。
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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.
当我年轻时，我以为金钱是人生中最重要的东西。现在我老了，我知道这是真的。
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when the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
当天神想要惩罚我们，他们就答应我们的祈祷。
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whenever people agree with me i always feel i must be wrong.
每当人们赞同我时，我总希望自己一定是错了。
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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。
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women have a much better time than men in this world. there are far more things forbidden to them.
女人在世上的日子要比男人好过得多。她们有太多禁忌。
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women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects.
女人因为男人的缺点而爱男人；如果男人的缺点足够多，女人什么事都可以原谅他们，哪怕是他们的智力。
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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。
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young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
年轻人想要有信仰，但他们却没有；老年人不想要有信仰，但却办不到。