The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

“All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.” “What is that?” “Disillusion.”

“Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often,” cried Lord Henry, laughing. “That is one of the most important secrets of life. I

what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose’—how does the quotation run?—‘his own soul?’”

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

She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost.

Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for.

What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.