Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde!

"Ah,well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means." Oscar Wilde once said (it seemed appropriate to start with a quote from the great man himself) So while it's time to celebrate what would have been the 156th birthday of one of the greatest writers, poets and playwrights of all time, lets all be glad it doesn't cost us anything to remember it, cause who has spare money these days?


Oscar was born in 1854 and became a prominent poet, playwright and aesthete. He wrote such famous works as The Picture of Dorian Gray, recently made into a film, and Salome, which was refused a licence at the time. His quotes are his best known works,you will have definitely heard his sayings even if you aren't aware of it, here are 5 of his best:

• "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
• "Fashion is what wears oneself: what is unfashionable is what other people wear."
• "He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time."
• "He hasn't a single redeeming vice."

And of course his most famous and my personal favourite:


"I can resist everything but temptation." 
What a brilliant line, in six words he says so much about desire, lust and self-enjoyment.


Unfortunately it would all end badly, as it so often seems to with the best of us. At the height of his success and fame when the Importance of Being Earnest was still on stage in London, Wilde became involved in a series of trials and lawsuits that ended with him in prison sentenced to two years hard labour for so called "gross indecency" with men. After being released he left for France never to return to the British Isles, he died in poverty in Paris at the age of 46.


I hope that's been an informative little read and were as before you might have known nothing about Oscar Wilde, you now know enough to get by. One can only dream of being as well quoted but have to try don't I?


Be casual. Be happy.