The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.

I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.

“Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having.”

Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you.

It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.”

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.”