Oscar Wilde – The importance of being earnest

Jack: Gwendolen, will you marry me? (Goes on his knees.)

Gwendolen: Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.

Jack: My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you.
Gwendolen: Yes, but men often propose for practice. …

Lady Bracknell. A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?

Jack. [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.

Lady Bracknell. I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Lady Bracknell. … Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?

Jack. I have lost both my parents.

Lady Bracknell. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Algernon. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

Algernon. I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.

Cecily. I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary.

Cecily. [To Gwendolen.] A gross deception has been practised on both of us.

Lady Bracknell: … I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.

Jack: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.

Further reading
http://www.wilde-online.info/the-importance-of-being-earnest.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
http://www.courttheatre.org/home/plays/0405/earnest/studyguide/studyguide.shtml