An Ideal Husband Key Quotes, Interpretations and Context
Key Quotes – An Ideal Husband
Mrs Cheveley - ‘A work of art, on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools’
(p.9)
[Sir Robert Chiltern] ‘intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected by the many’ (p.11)
Lady Markby: “Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.” (p.12)
Mrs Cheveley: “I prefer politics. I think they are more... becoming!” (p.15)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Did you know Baron Arnheim well?”
Mrs Cheveley: “Intimately.” (p.17)
‘He is clever, but would not like to be thought so.’
Sir Robert Chiltern: “[Goring is] the idlest man in London.” (p.18)
Mabel Chiltern: “Well, I delight in your [Goring’s] bad qualities” (p.19)
Mrs Cheveley: “I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a
Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.” (p.31)
Mrs Cheveley:
“Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity,
incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues.” (p.33)
Mrs Cheveley: “it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable.”
“Think of their loathsome joy, of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud
and mire they would plunge you in.” (p.33)
Lady Markby: “Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles... Lady Chiltern has a very
ennobling effect on life.” (p.36)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “No one should be entirely judged by their past.”
Lady Chiltern: “One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.”
(p.41)
Lady Chiltern: “To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal
still.” (p.43)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!”
Lady Chiltern: “I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs
must love the highest when we see it!” (p.45)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world I worship" (p.47)
Lord Goring: “no man should have a secret from his own wife.” (p.47)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Wealth has given me enormous power.” (p.51)
, Sir Robert Chiltern: “my ambition and my desire for power were at that time boundless.” (p.52)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I felt that I had fought the century with its own weapons, and won.” (p.53)
Lord Goring: “everyone has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us.” (p.56)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I feel like a man on a ship that is sinking. That water is round my feet, and
the very air is bitter with storm.” (p.59)
Lady Chiltern: “Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing as he is of doing a wrong thing.”
(p.63)
Lord Goring: “Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a
wrong thing.” (p.63)
Mrs Cheveley: “I hold your husband in the hollow of my hand” (p.79)
Lady Chiltern: “And how I worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a
thing pure, noble, honest, without stain.”
“I made of a man like you my ideal! The ideal of my life!”
Sir Robert Chiltern: “There was your mistake.”
“Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals?”
“Love should forgive.” (p.82)
Robert Chiltern: “Let women make no more ideals of men!” (p.83)
Sir Robert Chiltern: ‘She [Lady Chiltern] does not know what weakness or temptation is. I am of
clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do – pitiless in her perfection – could and
stern and without mercy.’ (p.99)
Lord Goring: ‘Of course I’m not nearly good enough for you, Mabel.’
Mabel Chiltern: ‘I am so glad, darling. I was afraid you were.’ (p.123)
Lord Goring: ‘Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness.’
‘A man’s life is of more value than a woman’s. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater
ambitions.’ (p.134)
Lady Chiltern: ‘We have both been punished. I set him up too high.’ (p.135)
Lady Chiltern: ‘You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the
world. I see that now.’ (p.136)
Sir Robert Chiltern: ‘Gertrude, is it love you feel for me, or is it pity merely?’
Lady Chiltern: ‘It is love, Robert. Love, and only love. For both of us a new life is beginning.’
(p.141)
Mabel: “An ideal husband! Oh, I don’t think that I should like that”
Flashcards
Key Quotes – An Ideal Husband
Mrs Cheveley - ‘A work of art, on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools’
(p.9)
[Sir Robert Chiltern] ‘intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected by the many’ (p.11)
Lady Markby: “Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.” (p.12)
Mrs Cheveley: “I prefer politics. I think they are more... becoming!” (p.15)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Did you know Baron Arnheim well?”
Mrs Cheveley: “Intimately.” (p.17)
‘He is clever, but would not like to be thought so.’
Sir Robert Chiltern: “[Goring is] the idlest man in London.” (p.18)
Mabel Chiltern: “Well, I delight in your [Goring’s] bad qualities” (p.19)
Mrs Cheveley: “I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a
Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.” (p.31)
Mrs Cheveley:
“Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity,
incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues.” (p.33)
Mrs Cheveley: “it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable.”
“Think of their loathsome joy, of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud
and mire they would plunge you in.” (p.33)
Lady Markby: “Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles... Lady Chiltern has a very
ennobling effect on life.” (p.36)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “No one should be entirely judged by their past.”
Lady Chiltern: “One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.”
(p.41)
Lady Chiltern: “To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal
still.” (p.43)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!”
Lady Chiltern: “I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs
must love the highest when we see it!” (p.45)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world I worship" (p.47)
Lord Goring: “no man should have a secret from his own wife.” (p.47)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “Wealth has given me enormous power.” (p.51)
, Sir Robert Chiltern: “my ambition and my desire for power were at that time boundless.” (p.52)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I felt that I had fought the century with its own weapons, and won.” (p.53)
Lord Goring: “everyone has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us.” (p.56)
Sir Robert Chiltern: “I feel like a man on a ship that is sinking. That water is round my feet, and
the very air is bitter with storm.” (p.59)
Lady Chiltern: “Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing as he is of doing a wrong thing.”
(p.63)
Lord Goring: “Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a
wrong thing.” (p.63)
Mrs Cheveley: “I hold your husband in the hollow of my hand” (p.79)
Lady Chiltern: “And how I worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a
thing pure, noble, honest, without stain.”
“I made of a man like you my ideal! The ideal of my life!”
Sir Robert Chiltern: “There was your mistake.”
“Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals?”
“Love should forgive.” (p.82)
Robert Chiltern: “Let women make no more ideals of men!” (p.83)
Sir Robert Chiltern: ‘She [Lady Chiltern] does not know what weakness or temptation is. I am of
clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do – pitiless in her perfection – could and
stern and without mercy.’ (p.99)
Lord Goring: ‘Of course I’m not nearly good enough for you, Mabel.’
Mabel Chiltern: ‘I am so glad, darling. I was afraid you were.’ (p.123)
Lord Goring: ‘Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness.’
‘A man’s life is of more value than a woman’s. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater
ambitions.’ (p.134)
Lady Chiltern: ‘We have both been punished. I set him up too high.’ (p.135)
Lady Chiltern: ‘You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the
world. I see that now.’ (p.136)
Sir Robert Chiltern: ‘Gertrude, is it love you feel for me, or is it pity merely?’
Lady Chiltern: ‘It is love, Robert. Love, and only love. For both of us a new life is beginning.’
(p.141)
Mabel: “An ideal husband! Oh, I don’t think that I should like that”
Flashcards
