The Picture of Dorian Gray Quotes With Page Numbers
“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.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Preface, Page 3
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Preface, Page 3
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1, Page 6
“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1, Page 7
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1, Page 9
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1, Page 11
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2, Page 21
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2, Page 22
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2, Page 23
“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2, Page 25
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3, Page 37
“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3, Page 41
“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.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3, Page 42
“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3, Page 43
“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4, Page 47
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4, Page 47
“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4, Page 52
“She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. 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 dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. ”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4, Page 54
“Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4, Page 57
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 5, Page 65
“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 6, Page 72
“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 6, Page 73
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 6, Page 77
“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 6, Page 77
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 9, Page 105
“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 12, Page 143
“To define is to limit.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 17, Page 187
“What of Art?
-It is a malady.
–Love?
-An Illusion.
–Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
–You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
–What are you?
-To define is to limit.”~Oscar Wilde , The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 17, Page 187
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 19, Page 208
“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”
~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 20, Page 210
