The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

All art is quite useless.

You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away.

It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.”

We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.

I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young.

In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak.

you poisoned me with a book once.

Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage.