Oscar Wilde quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray #9

[W]e [rich individualists] are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.

One has to pay in other ways but money.

My dear fellow, mediaeval art is charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.

"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray. "It is to adore some one."

Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them.

Nothing is ever quite true.

Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.

Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

“-Love is a more wonderful thing than art." "-They are both simply forms of imitation.”

It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-- people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.

[B]efore I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything.

I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire.

How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

[W]omen were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes.

[W]e live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

Posted in: