Throughout history there are humorous things that people have said. One of the wittiest men in history was Oscar Wilde; an aristocratic writer who lived in the 19th century. Such was his wit that he has had numerous quotes recorded and replayed throughout the years. Here is a brief selection of his finest gems.

?A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.?

Oscar Wilde was a married man with 2 children and, like many of the married people who have a degree of wit, often make light of the idea of marriage and the supposed ?task? of getting married. However, Wilde had a notoriously ?well rounded? love life having numerous affairs with both sexes; perhaps this quote had connotations vindicating this promiscuous lifestyle?

?Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.?

Need we read any more into this statement than has already been stated? Wilde and his affairs were exposed in a book called ?The Secret Confessions of Oscar Wilde? so it is no surprise that he said things that, in some ways, help to defend his way of life. As a man of the arts, Wilde was in touch with the changing artistic scene and knew that it was getting to the stage of drifting from the conventional, so used this logic to apply it to his lifestyle.

?Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.?

Living in an imperialist age, Wilde was ahead of his time in condemning patriotism. We can see in hindsight that he was correct to do so (the subsequent wars etc) but at the time these were highly controversial things to say; not least when we consider that the British empire was at the height of its power!