The Picture of Dorian Gray Quotations

The Picture of Dorian Gray (often mistakenly referred to as The Portrait of Dorian Gray) is the only published novel written by Oscar Wilde, first appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890. Wilde later revised this edition, making several alterations, and adding new chapters; the amended version was published by Ward, Lock, and Company in April 1891. The basic theme is of a man whose portrait ages while he remains young, leading him to debauchery.

Preface

• The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
  • These sayings were originally published as a defense of his work in The Fortnightly Review (1 March 1891), and published as the work's Preface in subsequent editions.

• The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.

• Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

• The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

• The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

• No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.

• From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

• All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

• We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.^[1]

• All bad art is the result of good intentions.

Chapter 1

• There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

• Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.

• A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

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

• Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

• When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them.

• The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.

• We shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

• The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

• Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.

• Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

• Women have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.

• Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.

• Genius lasts longer than beauty.

• If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.

• I think you are wrong, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

Chapter 2

• The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.

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

• He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.

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

• It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

• Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.

• Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot

Chapter 3

• Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.

• I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.

• …the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.

• The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray…

• Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

Chapter 4

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

• Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

• Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

• When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others.

• People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.

• A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely facinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistable. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

• Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

• The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failure.

• Punctuality is the thief of time.

• I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir the dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

• There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

• Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined oneself over poetry is an honour.

• A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.

Chapter 5

• Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. A southern wind of passion swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. "I love him", she said simply.

• Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

• Her eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of a dream had passed across them.

• To be in love is to surpass one's self.

Chapter 6

• The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.

• The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we're all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

• When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

• To be good is to be in harmony with oneself. Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.

• ...the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.

• Nothing is ever quite true.

• Women ... inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out.

Chapter 8

• Conscience makes egotists of us all.

• It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

• You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.

• Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

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

Chapter 11

• Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

Chapter 15

• When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

• Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

• I like men who have a future and woman who have a past.

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

• It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

• Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.

Chapter 17

• Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.

• To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

• To define is to limit.

• Romance lives by repetition and repetition converts an appetite into an art.

Chapter 18

• A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.

• The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it, unless these fellows keep chattering about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would not be delighted to change places with you.

• Women are fond of doing dangerous things.

• The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty.

• It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

• All ways end at the same point.

Chapter 19

• To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

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

• There are only two ways by which man can reach civilisation. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

• Married life is merely a habit, bad habit.

• The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each of us.

• Anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often.

• The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true.

• The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

• One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

Chapter 20

• The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

References

1. ↑ Cf. Théophile Gautier, Preface to Mademoiselle de Mapin.

External links

• Free eBook of The Picture of Dorian Gray (13-chapter version) at Project Gutenberg
• Free eBook of The Picture of Dorian Gray (20-chapter version) at Project Gutenberg
• The Picture of Dorian Gray quotes analyzed; learning & teaching guide

Related 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' Searches:

See Also:

• Autoregressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average
• Biodemography
• Clemens-heinrich Graf Von Kageneck
• Demographic
• Erbo Graf Von Kageneck
• Geography of Ghana
• Micrograph
• Mission (Grape)