"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."
OS
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
37 quotes
Quotes by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
"Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes."
"What fire does not destroy, it hardens"
"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui."
"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."
"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life."
"You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."
"Jemanden zu beeinflussen bedeutet, ihm eine fremde Seele zu geben."
"There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him."
"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."
"You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."
"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."
"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."
"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"
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."