The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 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.

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.

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

Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?” “Every day. I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me.” “How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but your art.” “He is all my art to me now,” said the painter gravely.

“Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray.” Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After some time he came back. “Harry,” he said, “Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him.

“Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,” murmured Lord Henry. “Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.

People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. 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.

“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!

How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. 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. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!” The hot tears welled into his eyes;

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

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.”

As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.

“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “why does he love me so much? I know why I love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be. But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him.

His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices them.”

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

Your portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal appearance of other people.

“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, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. Life had come between them.

Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one’s morals to see bad acting.

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

Good heavens, my dear boy, don’t look so tragic! The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.

But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again?

words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

“Harry,” cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, “why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don’t think I am heartless. Do you?”

“Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.” “But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?” “Ah, then,” said Lord Henry, rising to go, “then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.

If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it has never happened.

Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you.

He was not clever enough to have enemies. Of course, he had a wonderful genius for painting. But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as possible. Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once, and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art.”

You are really wonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming than you do to-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first. You were rather cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of course, but not in appearance.

wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you.

found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

He is quite delightful and rather reminds me of you.” “I hope not,” said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes.

As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

He had told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a laugh she had!—just