Oscar Wilde quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray #6

Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England what she is.

"-I believe in the race," she cried. "-It represents the survival of the pushing." "-It has development." "-Decay fascinates me more." "-What of art?" she asked. "-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." "-Give me a clue." "-Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth."

“-[S]he invents hats for me. You remember the one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party? You don't, but it is nice of you to pretend that you do. Well, she made if out of nothing. All good hats are made out of nothing." "-Like all good reputations.”

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman Catholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity of its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it sought to symbolize.

He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal.

Society--civilized society, at least-- is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

[T]he canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us.

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

There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.

[M]ind you don't talk about anything serious. Nothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be.

I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.

The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander.

One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.

I won't tell you that I don't want to preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach to you.

Each of us has heaven and hell in him.

But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.

There was romance in every place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything.

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