The Picture of Dorian Gray

"It is in the brain, not the heart, that new creations are stirred into being."

"To define is to limit."

"I hope I am not that."

"The ugliness of the world is only a very pale reflection of its wickedness."

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

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

"There are moments when History becomes Allegory."

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

"I have given my whole soul to someone who treated it as a plaything."

"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend. He has a wonderful influence over me."

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

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

"What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things."

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

"I wish I could love as you do, but I seem to have lost the passion and the power."

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

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

"One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders."

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

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

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

"Ah, but what a silly thing love is! It is not what I expected it to be."

"The very essence of romance is uncertainty."

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

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

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

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

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