The Picture of Dorian Gray

Chapter I p.12, 13 & 15
The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.

It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.

Chapter II p.18, 20 & 22
(...)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 virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things 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.

Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them.

Was there anything so real as words?

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

Chapter III p.40
“I am to fond of reading books to care to write them”

Chapter IV p.46 & 53
“It is only the sacred things that are worth touching,”

Experience was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Chapter VI p.69 & 71
“Women are wonderfully practical,” murmured Lord Henry, “much more practical than we are. In situations of that kind, we often forget to say anything about marriage, and they always remind us.”

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

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

Chapter VIII p.84, 89, 91
When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

Chapter XII p.131
“Scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.”

Chapter XV p.154, 155 & 156
“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.”

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them they will forgive useverything, even our intellects.”

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

“I like men who have a future, and women who have a past,”

Chapter XVIII p.175, 176
“Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.”

“A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.”

“I like the Duchess very much, but I don't love her.”
“And the Duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you are excellently matched.”

“The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,”

Chapter XIX p.180, 183 & 187
“Thereis no use your telling me that you are going to be good,” cried Lord Henry, (...). “You are quite perfect. Pray, don't change.”

“one can survive everything nowadays except that.” (talking about death)

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”