The Picture of Dorian Grey

By Oscar Wilde QUOTATION: There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 4 (1891).

QUOTATION: One should never make one’s debut with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one’s old age.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 8 (1891).

QUOTATION: Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A really great poet is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely 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 quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 4 (1891).

QUOTATION: 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 then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 8 (1891).

QUOTATION: Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 19 (1891).

QUOTATION: She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 15 (1891).

QUOTATION: 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.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 1 (1891).

QUOTATION: 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.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 15 (1891).

QUOTATION: Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Grey, ch. 1 (1891).

QUOTATION: I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry, in the The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 6 (1891).

QUOTATION: Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
ATTRIBUTION: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Lord Henry to Dorian Gray, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 19 (1891).

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