Oscar Wilde

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succès de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Yoko simons 

When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

Chloe Heisserer

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain, and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.

clara

Storm

‘…every great portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the foolish siter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter: it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.’

I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisit joys and exquisite sorrows

‘…Tell me more about Mr Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?’

‘Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me.’

Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. 

‘I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.’

‘Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear Basil.’

‘I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices…’

The Picture of Dorian Gray quotes

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