The Importance of Being Earnest: Quotes
GWENDOLEN: In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. - act 3
A sentence that wraps up the central idea in this play
It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.
Algernon Act 1
My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.
Algernon Act 2
ALGERNON: Divorces are made in Heaven - act 1
Algernon's attitude towards marriage Ironic
I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.
Cecily Act 2
I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
Cecily Act 2
This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Cecily Act 2
How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us... They have moments of physical courage of which we women know absolutely nothing.
Cecily Act 3
My sermon on the meaning of the manna in the wilderness can be adapted to almost any occasion, joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing. [All sigh.] I have preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations...
Chasuble Act 2
ALGERNON: Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.] - act 1
Contradiction between actions and words
ALGERNON: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal - act 1
Demonstrates Algernon's attitude towards marriage
ALGERNON: I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that business. - act 1
Demonstrates Algernon's attitude towards marriage (contrasts with Jack's attitude towards marriage)
ALGERNON: A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.
Demonstrates the value Algernon places on Bunburying, importance of maintaining a double identity to ensure liberty from the constraints of the restrictive standards in society
GWENDOLEN AND CECILY (at the same time): Your Christian names are an insuperable barrier. That is all! - act 3
Expectations of the female gender Their perception of the name 'Earnest' Placing importance of something trivial, yet treating something trivial with great importance
JACK: Then I have a brother after all. I knew I had a brother! I always said I had a brother!
Farcical nature of the play (absurd) -Theme of truth vs lies
From the moment I saw you I distrusted you. I felt that you were false and deceitful. I am never deceived in such matters. My first impressions of people are invariably right
Gwendolin Act 2
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Gwendolin Act 2
Something tells me that we are going to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong.
Gwendolin Act 2
Sugar is not fashionable any more. [Cecily looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup.]
Gwendolin Act 2
You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.
Gwendolin Act 2
[Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Gwendolin Act 2
How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
Jack Act 2
Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
Jack Act 3
I have never had a brother and I don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind.
Jack Act 3
Unmarried! I do not deny that is a serious blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for men and another for women?
Jack Act 3
MISS PRISM: [...]At last! ALGERNON: [...]At last! JACK: [...]At last!
Lack of individuality in Society Happy Ending
To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
Lady Bracknell Act 1
I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.
Lady Bracknell Act 3
I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell, I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way.
Lady Bracknell Act 3
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.
Lady Bracknell Act 3
JACK: Is that clever?
Meta-textual, being aware of the witty aphorisms used
I am not sure that I would desire to reclaim him. I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice. As a man sows so let him reap.
Miss. Prism Act 2
The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational.
Miss. Prism Act 2
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
Miss. Prism Act 2
Here is the stain on the lining caused by the explosion of a temperance beverage, an incident that occurred at Leamington.
Miss. Prism Act 3
LADY BRACKNELL: I would strongly advise you, Mr Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over - act 1
Parents are not something you can casually require- demonstrates how important matters are made trivial Reveals how people in the higher class think
JACK: It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case. - act 1
Placing importance on a trivial act
ALGERNON: Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? - act 1
Reversal of societal standards
LADY BRACKNELL: You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room and form an alliance with a parcel.
The demands of society Demonstrates the exaggerated tone in which Lady Bracknell uses and the logical leaps she makes when she talks to demonstrate absurdity
ALGERNON: I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.
The luxuries of the upper-class Placing importance on a trivial act
