Dorian Gray – Character Quotes

— I give the truths of to-morrow.
— I prefer the mistakes of to-day.

...wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden flowers, or aromatic balms, and of dark and fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad, and of aloes that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.

"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!"
"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian."

— Why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless.

I have no terror of Death. It is the coming of Death that terrifies me.

Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own hands.

“You must admit, Harry, that women give to men the very gold of their lives.”
“Possibly,” he sighed, “but they invariably want it back in such very small change.”

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

The dead linger sometimes.

I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.

Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him.

"I believe in the race," she cried.
"It represents the survival of the pushing."
"It has development."
"Decay fascinates me more."
"What of Art?" she asked.
"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."
"Give me a clue."
"Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth."

I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle.he told me she didn't, because none of them had had any hearts at all.

— Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. I hate it.
— Why?
— Because, one can survive everything nowadays except that.

Ah, what is impossible?

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.