Oscar Wilde quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray #2

p78. - "When is she Sibyl Vane?" "-Never."

Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his Soul, and Desire had come to meet it on the way.

p79. [I]t is personalities, not principles, that move the age.

p80. - People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.

Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

“-Romance lives by repetition, 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 alter 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 experience 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.

As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook like a white narcissus.

Women are wonderfully practical.

[T]he only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any question-- simple curiosity.

I have a theory that it is always the women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.

Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about.

p94. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

p95. - To be in love is to surpass one's self.

"-He wants to enslave you." "-I shudder at the thought of being free."

96. To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.

"-Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear Basil." "-Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry." "-Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly.

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

"Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, 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 fancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience.

You are much better than you pretend to be.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.

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