An Ideal Husband Quotes

Question 1

Sir Robert Chiltern: political power

Answer 1

‘power over other men […] one thing worth having’

‘A man’s whole career should be ruined for a fault done in one’s boyhood almost?’

Question 2

Sir Robert Chiltern: greed

Answer 2

‘his tapestries, his enamels, his jewels’

‘The God of this century is wealth’

Question 3

Mrs Cheveley: financial ambition

Answer 3

‘And I am in attack’

‘You are going to make it possible’

Question 4

Mabel Chiltern: satire

Answer 4

‘beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics’

‘Men need it so sadly’ (education)

Question 5

Mrs Cheveley: satire

Answer 5

‘Men can be analysed, women merely adored’

Question 6

Mrs Cheveley: extreme emotion

Answer 6

‘[paroxysm of rage]’

Question 7

Lord Goring: aestheticism

Answer 7

‘I love talking about nothing’
‘I am very selfish’
‘Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people’

Question 8

Lord Goring: women

Answer 8

‘But women who have common sense are so curiously plain, father, aren’t they?’
‘Women have a wonderful instinct about things’
‘Too much rouge […] and not quite enough clothes’
‘A man’s life is worth more than a woman’s’

Question 9

Lady Chiltern: female relationships

Answer 9

‘I did not know she had married a second time’

Question 10

Mrs Cheveley: female reputations

Answer 10

‘I think [women] are usually punished for it!’ (being charming)

Question 11

Sir Robert Chiltern: women

Answer 11

‘Women represent the irrational’

‘Gertrude, public and private life are different things’

Question 12

Lady Chiltern: judgement

Answer 12

‘I don’t call women of that kind clever’

‘One’s past is what one is’

Question 13

Lady Chiltern: extreme emotion

Answer 13

‘I feel as if you had soiled me for ever’

‘A common thief were better’

Question 14

Sir Robert Chiltern: blame

Answer 14

‘You ruined my life for me- yes, ruined it!’