How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly¹ normal human being.

如果男人坚持把她当作一个完全正常的人，女人如何能期望会从他那里获得幸福。

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

我敬佩简单的快乐，那是复杂的最后避难所。

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

除了感官，什么也不能治灵魂的创痛，同样，感官的饥渴也只有灵魂解除得了。

A good name, like good will, is got by many action and lost by one.

一个好的名声，就像好的意向一样，在很多个举动的形成，在一个举动中失去。

It is absurd to divide people in to good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

-Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act I

把人分成好的与坏的是荒谬的，人要么迷人，要么乏味。

-《温夫人的扇子》

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.

-The Sphinx Without a Secret

女人是用来被爱的，不是用来被理解的。

-《没有秘密的斯芬克斯》

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

艺术并非模仿生活，而是生活在模仿艺术。

Everyone is born king, and most people die in exile.

每个人生来都是君王，但大多数在流亡中死去。

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.

我年青时以为金钱至上，而今年事已迈，发现果真如此。

Don't be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, don't believe them.

不要惧怕过去。如果人们告诉你说过去的事情无可挽回，别相信他们。

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

一个思想若称不上危险，那么它就不值得被称作思想。

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

争论是俗不可耐的，因为道德社会里每个人都持完全相同的观点。

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

死亡和庸俗是十九世纪仅有的无法用巧辩逃避的东西。

Patriotism² is the virtue³ of the vicious.

爱国是恶人的美德。

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

每次人们赞同我的时候，我都觉得自己一定错了。

I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough. I leave romance to my seniors.

我一点都不浪漫。我还不算太老。还是把浪漫留给比我老的人吧。

Wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.

坏女人给我麻烦。好女人令我厌烦。这就是她们唯一的不同。

Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

每个人犯了错误，都自称是经验。

——经验是一个人给自己所犯的错误取的名字。

And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic⁴ point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Literary and Other Notes I, Woman's World (November 1887)

时尚是一种让人难以忍受的丑陋，以至于我们不得不每六个月就更改一次。

——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。

A man's face is his autobiography⁵. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

男人的面孔是他的自传，女人的面容是她的幻想作品。

There is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.

女人的生活中只有一个真正的悲剧：她总在缅怀过去，却必须活在未来。 [待继续润色]

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.

我们教给人们如何记忆，却从来不教他们如何成长。

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.

-The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881)

任何人都能对朋友的不幸感到同情，但要消受一个春风得意的朋友，则需要非常优良的天性。

-《社会主义下人的灵魂》