Importance of Being Earnest Quotes Flashcards
Expression>accuracy
I play with wonderful expression
Pleasure
Oh pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring anyone anywhere? Act1.40
Pleasure
Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. Act1.186
Cecily decadence
Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.
Lack of responsibility/Idleness
It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. Act1.690
Pleasure
I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious. Act1.751
Responsibility
Jack: a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness (I.83)
Identity
My dear fellow, it isn’t easy to be anything nowadays. Act1.278
Doubling
Algernon: You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. (I.88)
Laziness/Class
I was very near offering a large reward. Act1.117
Town vs country/ Responsibility
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring. Act1.47
Class/Responsibility
Really if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? Act1.33
Town vs Country
A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country. Act1.517
You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know. Act1.222
You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know. Act1.222
Truth
Jack: [Slowly and hesitatingly] It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. (II.348)
Humour/Family/Jack and Algy
Jack: What nonsense! I haven’t got a brother.
Cecily: Oh, don’t say that. However badly he may have behaved to you in the past he is still your brother. You couldn’t be so heartless as to disown him. I’ll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with him, won’t you, Uncle Jack? (II.133-135)
Truth
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Act1.214
Ignorance
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit;touch it and the bloom is gone. Act1.496
Name/Appearances
You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn’t Ernest. It’s on your cards. Act1.161
That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. Act1.292
That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. Act1.292
Women/Gwendolen/Marriage
I intend to develop in many directions. Act1.297
Marriage/Infidelity
I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. She looks quite twenty years younger. Act1.299
Duty
It is high time Mr.Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. Act1.345
Class
It is my last reception, … the end of the season when everyone has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much. Act1.352
Women
In fact, I am never wrong. Act1.379
Relationships between men and women/marriage
And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. Act1.387
Ideal/Women/Cecily/Gwendolen
My ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Earnest. Act1.394
Gwendolen/Relationship between men and women
I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you. Act1.440
Lady Bracknell/Women/
Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous. Act1.458
Marriage
Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil Act1.478
Family/Pleasure
Relations are simply a tedious lack of people, who haven’t got the remotest idea of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. Act1.612
Relationship between men and women
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man is. That’s his. Act1.625
Truth
My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl. Act1.641
Women/Cecily and Gwendolen
Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Act1.675
Duty/Class
What between the duties expected of one during one’s lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. Act1. 506
Idleness/Class
A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far to many idle men in London. Act1.487
Marriage
It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public. Act1.251
Marriage
Is marriage so demoralising as that? ActI.22
Romance/Love/Marriage
The very essence of romance is uncertainty. Act1.76
Romance/Love/Marriage
Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right. Act1.98
Marriage/Infidelity
the happy English home has produced in half the time. Act1.274
Pleasure/Marriage
Living entirely for pleasure now. I hear her hair has turned quite gold with grief. Act1. 320
Marriage
I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. Act1.465
Class
Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy? Act1.540
Class/Upbringing/Identity/Marriage
The line is immaterial. Act1.568
display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds me of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
Marriage/Class
Me, sir! What has it to do with me? 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? Act1.592
Romance/Love/Algernon/Pleasure
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. Act1.644
Marriage
I may marry someone else, and marry often, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you. Act1.705
Romance/Love/Marriage
in married life three is company and two is none. Act1.270
Marriage/Religion
Divorces are made in heaven. Act1.82
Pleasure/Marriage
I thought you had come up for pleasure? I call that business. Act1.70
I do not give my consent.Act1.103
I do not give my consent.Act1.103
Marriage
you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the Dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. Act1.480
Appearances/Identity
Try and acquire some relation as soon as possible. Act1.584
