"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin.

If the cav
eman had known how to laugh, history would have been different." P. 45
He thought for a moment. "Can you remember any great error that you committed in
your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table.
"A great many, I fear" she cried.
"Then commit them over again" he said gravely. "To get back one's youth, one has
merely to repeat one's follies." P. 45
"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have
anything to say, but they said charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter
over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals." P. 52
"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallo
w people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the le
thargy 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 fa
ilure. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in
it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that ot
hers might pick them up." P. 54
"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The
consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his princip
les, and his common sense. The only artists I have every known who are personall
y delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and c
onsequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really
great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. Bur inferior poets are abs
olutely fascinating. 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 qui
te irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the
poetry that they dare not realyze. " P. 61
"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to ta
ke towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I n
ever take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what
charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression
that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in lo
ve with a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her. Why not? If
he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting. You know I am not a
champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unself
ish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. Still, there
are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their ego
tism, and add to it many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life.
They become more highly organized, and to be highly organized, is, I should fan
cy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of value, and wh
atever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. I hope that
Dorian Gray will meet this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months,
and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful s
tudy." P. 79
"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for
ourselves. The basis of optmism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous
because we credit our neighbour with the possesion of those virtues that are lik
ely to be a benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our accont,
and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our poc
kets. I mean everything that i have said. I have the gretest contempt for optimi
sm. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.
If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it. As for marriage, of c
ourse that would be silly, but there are other and more interesting bonds betwee
n men and women. I will certainly encourage them. They have the charm of being f

ashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I can." .P. 7
9 and 80
"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-- People who know
absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." P. 89
"Women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions.
They only thought od their emoticons. When they took lovers, it was merely to h
ave some one with whom they could have scenes." P. 96
"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their
origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and the
n, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the we
ak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw
on a band where they have no account." P. 105
"Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one loses one'
s own. In good society that always whitewahses a woman. But really, Dorian, how
different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women one meets! There is somet
hing to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century w
hen such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we a
ll play with, such as romance, passion, and love." P. 107
"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anythin
g else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but
they remain slaves looing for their masters, all the same. They love being domi
nated." P. 107
"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough" broke in Lord Henry. "Your were fa
r too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first hu
sband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women t
ry their luck; men risk theirs." P. 182
"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her" P. 183
"There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what
the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as eve
ry cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women
at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end
as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed,
or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedi
ence its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins
of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from he
aven, it was as a rebel that he fell." P. 194
"My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? Romance lives by repe
tition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that
one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not al
ter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one
great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experienc
e as often as possible."
"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after a pause.
"Especially when one has been wounded by it." answered Lord Henry" P. 202
"Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes t
hings wonderful." P. 212
"Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. Don't spoil
it br renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. Don't make yourself imc
omplete. You are quite flawless now. You need not shake your head: you know you

are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or in
tention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in
which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy youself saf
e and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning
sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memorie
s with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadenc
e from a piece of music that you had ceased to play-- I tell you, Dorian, that i
t is on things like these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that some
where; but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are moments when the o
dour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest
month of my life over again. I wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The
world has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you. It always
will worship you. You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what i
t is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never
carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself!
Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonn
ets." - P. 223 & 224