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Teachers' Resource Web Oscar Wilde's Maxims Al Drake, UCI Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas. The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value. In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policeman can see them. They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them. Phrases And Philosophies For The Use Of The Young It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes. Only the shallow know themselves. A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it. In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer. Industry is the root of all ugliness. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. (both sets selected from Chameleon, December 1894 Reprinted in Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. New York: Harper, 1966. 1203-06.)
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