Quotes from book
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Name: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Fearing the story was indecent, the magazine's editor deleted roughly five hundred words before publication without Wilde's knowledge. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year.

“What of Art?
-It is a malady.
--Love?
-An Illusion.
--Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
--You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
--What are you?
-To define is to limit.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible….”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You will always love, and you will always be loved.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about it's use. It is hitting below the intellect.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Lord Darlington, Act III.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
Variant: What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Context: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. [Answering the question, what is a cynic? ]

“Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The sky was pure opal now.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am afraid that woman appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray