The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

“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!

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.”

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.

“To be good is to be in harmony with one’s self,” he replied, touching the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. “Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.

under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of ideas.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Same

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

“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”