The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

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

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.

If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.”