Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions — Volume 1

"Give me the luxuries," he used to say, "and anyone can have the necessaries."

One of them, the Church, is a noble body without a soul; the soul, our nostrils tell us, died some time ago,

he was at once pleasure-loving, vainly self-confident and weak;

always seemed to me, was over-educated, had learned, that is, too much from books and not enough from life and had thought too little for himself

His sympathy with the poor bored me:

My very soul seemed to expand within me to peace and joy.

, but he was plainly not the man for the dolichos (or long struggle), though first-rate for a short examination."

He never entertained any pronounced views on social, religious or political questions while in College;

But the future was beckoning to me, and I could not help talking about it,

As early as I can remember I used to identify myself with every distinguished character I read about,