Society
Lord Caversham: Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society. Shouldn't mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner with my wife’s milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham’s bonnets. (Act I.)

Mabel Chiltern: Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be. (Act I.)

Lord Caversham: Can't make out how you stand London Society. The thing has gone to the dogs, a lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing. (Act I.)

Lady Markby: Ah yes, I suppose it must have been at the Opera. The fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing Room, I always feel as if I hadn't a shred on me, except a small shred of decent reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that our Society is terribly over-populated. Really, some one should arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great deal of good. (Act II.)

Lady Markby: No thanks, dear. [The servants go out.] The fact is, I have promised to go round for ten minutes to see poor Lady Brancaster, who is in very great trouble. Her daughter, quite a well-brought-up girl, too, has actually become engaged to be married to a curate in Shropshire. It is very sad, very sad indeed. I can't understand this modern mania for curates. In my time we girls saw them, of course, running about the place like rabbits. But we never took any notice of them, I need hardly say. But I am told that nowadays country society is quite honeycombed with them. (Act II.)

Lord Goring: Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. (Act III.)

Mrs Cheveley: [After a pause.] I am tired of living abroad. I want to come back to London. I want to have a charming house here. I want to have a salon. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilised. Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns', I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern’s letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me. (Act III.)

Mabel Chiltern: You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about ... anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Every one in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all. (Act IV.)

Romance/romantic
[Sir ROBERT CHILTERN]: [...] The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. The variance is suggestive of an almost complete separation of passion and intellect, as though thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some violence of will-power. [...] (Act. I.)

Mrs Cheveley: Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more ... becoming! (Act I.)

[LORD GORING. [...] A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.] (Act I.)

Mrs Cheveley: My memory is under admirable control. And are you still a bachelor? Lord Goring: I ... believe so. Mrs Cheveley: How very romantic! (Act I.) Lord Goring: I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough. I leave that to my seniors.

Mrs Cheveley: Thank you. I knew we should come to an amicable agreement. I understood your nature from the first. I analysed you, though you did not adore me. And now you can get my carriage for me, Sir Robert. I see the people coming up from supper, and Englishmen always get romantic after a meal, and that bores me dreadfully. [Exit SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.] (Act I.)

Mabel Chiltern: [...] When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention. (Act 2.)

Lord Goring: To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, Phipps. (Act III.)

Mrs Cheveley: [To herself.] [...] How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance. Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

Mrs Cheveley: [After a pause.] I am tired of living abroad. [...] Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns', I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern’s letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me.

Mrs Cheveley: [...] Well, Arthur, I suppose this romantic interview may be regarded as at an end. You admit it was romantic, don't you? For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very well. If Sir Robert doesn't uphold my Argentine scheme, I expose him. Voile tout. (Act III.)

Weakness/Strength
Sir Robert Chiltern: ‘Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak? Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one’s life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, a terrible courage. I had that courage. I sat down the same afternoon and wrote Baron Arnheim the letter this woman now holds. He made three-quarters of a million over the transaction.’ (Act II.)

Lord Goring: I can't tell you how at present. I have not the smallest idea. But every one has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us. [Strolls to the fireplace and looks at himself in the glass.] My father tells me that even I have faults. Perhaps I have. I don't know. (Act (II.)

Secrets
Mrs Cheveley: Oh, I assure you it’s all settled. I don't regret my tedious journey from Vienna now. It has been a great success. But, of course, for the next twenty-four hours the whole thing is a dead secret.

Lady Chiltern: [Gently.] A secret? Between whom? (Act I.)

Lady Chiltern: I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their lives - men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame - oh! don't tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any secret dishonour or disgrace? [...] (Act I.)

Lord Goring: [...] You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from other people’s wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

Sir Robert Chiltern: [Bitterly.] Men who every day do something of the same kind themselves. Men who, each one of them, have worse secrets in their own lives. Lord Goring: That is the reason they are so pleased to find out other people’s secrets. It distracts public attention from their own. (Act II).

Sir Robert Chiltern: [Sits down at the table and takes a pen in his hand.] Well, I shall send a cipher telegram to the Embassy at Vienna, to inquire if there is anything known against her. There may be some secret scandal she might be afraid of. (Act II.)

Lady Chiltern: [...] Robert [...] secrets from me, and I don't think he has any from you. Lord Goring: He certainly has no secrets from me. At least I don't think so. (Act II.)

Lady Chiltern: You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true! (Act II.)

Lord Goring: [After some hesitation.] Oh, merely by something in the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?

Sir Robert Chiltern: [...] I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. [Burying his face in his hands.] (Act III.)

Sir Robert Chiltern: There is some one. There are lights in the room, and the door is ajar. Some one has been listening to every secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean? (Act III.)

Sir Robert Chiltern: Stand back. My life is at stake. And I don't care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my secret and my shame. [Enters room.] (Act III.)