The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty.

I assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans."

"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect."

He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.

"I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?"

"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to."

that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.

"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

To be in love is to surpass one's self.

And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.

would you agree?

"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a terrible price for doing so?"

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.