Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."

"What fire does not destroy, it hardens"

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

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

"But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to."

"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."

"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui."

"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."

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

"Even things that are true can be proved."

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

"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."

"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."

"You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

"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."