Портрет Дориана Грея

the search for beauty is the poisonous secret of life

I used to look at every one who passed me, and wonder with a mad curiosity what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations.

I felt that this gray, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its splendid sinners, and its sordid sins, as you once said, must have something in store for me.

As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society.

no woman is a genius: women are a decorative sex.

I don’t think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love.

You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can’t afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was always in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

‘I trust you.’ — ‘I wish I could trust myself’

He won’t like you better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own.

What a fuss people make about fidelity!

Sin is the only colorelement left in modern life.

Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us.

If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old!

The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.

The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion, for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.

Realize your youth while you have it

Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.