The scene is set in an English country house â" Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who is engaging in conversation with Lady Huntstanton's American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. Other characters are introduced, including the flirtatious Mrs Allonby, the meek Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline's submissive husband Sir John. They discuss frivolous matters and are later joined by the powerful, charming and charismatic gentleman, Lord Illingworth who has offered the post of secretary to the fortunate Gerald Arbuthnot. Gerald's mother is invited to join the party, and when she arrives she realises that Lord Illingworth is Gerald's father. She had an affair with him twenty years ago, became pregnant and he refused to marry her, making her a "fallen woman." She is reluctant to let Gerald become Illingworth's secretary, but doesn't tell Gerald her reasons behind her reluctance...
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are don't you think one can be happy when one is married?Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.
So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building
We men know life too early. And we women know life too late.
The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations.
The world says that Lord Illingworth is very, very what world says that? It must be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.
One should never take sides in anything. Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore.
To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!
When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. But a really GRANDE PASSION is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes in a country.
You should never try to understand them（women）. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means - which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do - look at her, don't listen to her.
The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions.
Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings.
They say that when good Americans die they go to ed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?Oh, they go to America.
