Lord Henry Wotton

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike."

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral."

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"Beauty is a form of Genius—is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy."

"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."

"The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

"There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love."

"What is past is of interest chiefly to historians."

"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."

"Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"

"The secret to remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming."

"Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I would suggest that we leave off discussing so sordid a thing at dinner."

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things."

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists."

"Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life."

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

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

"To define is to limit."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing."

"Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence."

"You remind me of a wonderful work of art."

"If I could get back my youth, I would be quite content to give up everything else."

"The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else."

"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies."

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."