Themes
Style above sincerity
The collection's creed is stated twice in one saying: 'In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.' The repetition is the joke and the point. The same view makes 'a really well-made buttonhole' the only link between Art and Nature, and asks the reader to be a work of art or to wear one.
Morality reversed
Wilde takes the maxims of improving books and inverts them. Wickedness is 'a myth invented by good people', good resolutions 'are invariably made too soon', and the only way to be remembered by tradesmen is not to pay one's bills. The sharpest turn is against moral thinking itself: 'Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.'
Youth and the useful life
The title addresses the young, and the sayings flatter them against age and work. 'The young know everything', the aim of perfection is youth, and 'To be premature is to be perfect.' Wilde's pity is kept for young men who 'start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession', and industry is 'the root of all ugliness'.