The Picture of Dorian Gray

"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, to dominate them."

"It is what you are that matters, not what you look like."

"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart."

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

"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people."

"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about."

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."

"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws."

"Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic."

"There are moments when history ceases, and deserts of eternity open out before one's eyes."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous."

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

"I wish I could love as you do, Basil."

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."

"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past."

"As for being fashionable, I find that quite easy. It is only the obvious that is difficult."

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"One can always recognize women who trust their husbands. They look so thoroughly unhappy."

"The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish."

"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."

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

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know."

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

"I can resist everything except temptation."

"Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed."

"I don't think that the object is just one life. I think that there should be many lives."

"The value of a thing is not always its price, but its worth."