The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Original 1890 Edition (A Oscar Wilde Classics)

by Oscar Wilde

The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.

We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.”

“There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.” “Why?” “Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed.

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

Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.”

“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it.

“She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.”

“Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,” said Mr. Erskine; “I myself would say that it had merely been detected.”

“Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?” inquired the duchess. “They go to America,” murmured Lord Henry.

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”

“My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”

“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.

“Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.”

“you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life.

Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history.

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.”