Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” Quotes (161 Quotes)

As he looked back upon man moving through History, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose!...Hedonism... was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is but itself a moment.

Even things that are true can be proved.

I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses anyone for asking any question - simple curiosity.

I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.

Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh new school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body - how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! If only you knew what Dorian Gray is to me!

Women have no appreciation of good looks-at least, good women have not.

As he passed out, he used to look with wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn grating the true story of their lives.

Every impulse we strangle will only poison us.

I believe that you are really a very good husband but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.

I was dominated, soul, brain, and power by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.

It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free.

Perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its place.

The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives.

There is a fatality about good resolutions - that they are always made too late

We all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.

Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be-in other ages, perhaps.

Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

I can believe in anything. Provided it is quite remarkable.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Its a beautiful woman's fate to be the subject of conversation where ever she goes

Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part.

The one charm about the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.

There seemed to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.

We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant.

Yes Harry I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

Genie währt länger als Schönheit.

I didn't say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.

I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You worshipped yourself too much. We are both punished.

Jemanden zu beeinflussen bedeutet, ihm eine fremde Seele zu geben.

Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past.

There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly and with silver feet the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

Yes, very sensible... People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame.

Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them.

Genius lasts longer than beauty

I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

If I could get back my youth, I'd do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.

Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.

There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes...

You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.