The Oscar Wilde Fake Quotes Archive

—Dubious, Apocryphal, & Misattrubuted Quotations —

FAKE: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Not an Oscar Wilde quotation—but he borrowed something like it.

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THE MYTH: WHERE IT APPEARS

This quotation has circulated widely on social media particularly with the claim that the words after “flattery” complete the full version of the quotation. The reality is that neither part of the quotation is originally by Wilde. It is a conflation of two phrases: a proverb that predates Wilde by 150 years and an observation that Wilde borrowed.

WHERE IT ORIGINATED

The Quote Investigator has traced the proverb “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and its many variants back to at least the early eighteenth century. And the remark that imitation or plagiarism is “the homage that mediocrity pays to genius” and its variants back to the mid-nineteenth century.

‍WHAT DID OSCAR WILDE SAY

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‍To his lady companions (possibly including Miss Gabrielle Greeley, daughter of editor Horace Greeley) in his box at the Standard Theatre, New York on January 5, 1882 while attending a production of Patience.

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‍On this and other occasions Wilde was reported as saying in reference to the appearance of the Wildean character Bunthorne on stage:

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‍This is one of the compliments mediocrity pays to those who are not mediocre.

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‍WHERE IT BEGAN TO APPEAR

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‍In the Press: New York Tribune, January 6, 1882 reporting the above visit by Wilde to see Patience.

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‍Autograph Fragment: Made by Wilde on May 7, 1882 in New York (see opposite).

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‍Lecture: In Wilde’s early lecture in America: The English Renaissance of Art. Reprinted in Miscellanies, London: Methuen and Co., 1908.

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‍In his lectures, Wilde did not refer to himself in this fashion as a genius, but to others such as, on this occasion, the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood:

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‍Satire, always as sterile as it is shameful and as impotent as it is insolent, paid them that usual homage which mediocrity pays to genius.

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Satire is the homage which mediocrity pays to genius

The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA

Object Number: 77.1204

For a comprehensive review of sources of this quotation and Wilde’s iterations see:

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Oscar Wilde Quotations

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