Lord Henry Wotton

"The body sins once and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification."

"It is what you are that matters, not what you do."

"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself, and one always ends by deceiving others."

"To define is to limit."

"I suppose, Hallward, that when a man has talked for a quarter of an hour, he has said something foolish."

"Ah! The love that dare not speak its name."

"The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

"I wonder if you will ever really love her."

"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"No gentleman is ever accidentally rude."

"That is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil."

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins."

"Believe me, Dorian, it is better to be beautiful than to be good."

"The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer."

"Ah, but you will not always be young, Dorian. Some day you will be old and wrinkled."

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

"Does a gentleman tell his secrets? No, he does not even tell them to his mother."

"I have always been my own greatest admirer. I have always felt that I should go far."

"Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious."

"The only shame is being ashamed of one's shame."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"Beauty is a form of genius."

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"What is past is of little account. You have it all before you."

"Being natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."

"The heart was made to be broken."

"As long as one has this thing called life, there is always some interest in living it."