Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape (...)"

"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."

"It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

"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."

"You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid"

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy."

"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."

"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed."

"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life."

"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."

"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."

"Even things that are true can be proved."

"But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality."

"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."

"It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."

"Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes."

"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."