Have you ever read a book wherein each and every sentence is a memorable quote? Well, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a book like that!
Enchanting. Spell binding. Tragic. Witty. And Terrifying. The Picture of Dorian Gray is all that. It's the only novel that Oscar Wilde wrote in his life, but what a masterpiece! It is close to what we call perfection in literature. This is the reason why it has become one of my all-time favorites. Since the book is full of wonderful quotes, I have listed down some of my favorites in this blog.
Books, Morality and Reading:
"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them."
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
Emotions:
"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."
Value:
"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Fame:
"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
"Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity."
Aesthetics:
"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."
Children and Parents:
"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them."
Love and Marriage:
"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed."
Evanescence:
"Some things are more precious because they don't last long."
Mistakes:
"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."
Soul and Senses:
"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."
"The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought and sold and bartered away."
Words:
"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words"?
Art and Painting:
"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter."
Laughter and Friendship:
"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one."
Secrecy:
"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it."
"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."
Ennui:
"I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else."
Men and women:
"We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all."
"When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."
"As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied."
"Man is many things, but he is not rational."
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
Advice:
"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."
Knowing and not knowing:
"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."
Epistemology:
"Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful."
Past and Future:
"The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable."
Judgement and Reason:
"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life."
"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue."
"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."
There are more in the book. Give it a read. Enjoy and share!
The author can be reached at sherazreads@gmail.com.
댓글