The winter season has arrived and readers, do you know what that means? It’s time to read dark, scary stories that will chill us to the bones. Reading at nighttime hits differently, but it’s even better if it’s a haunting story. One such amazing story that still chills us follows Dorian Gray.
The Picture Of Dorian Gray is a classic novel that you must have heard of, thanks to the “dark academia core” aesthetic and bookstagrammers. It’s a novel written by Oscar Wilde. It’s a short book following a portrait of Dorian Gray, a character who’s obsessed with his beauty.
It’s a must-read book for fans of gothic literature and classics. It’s filled with such wise words and advice, that we bet you’ll end up annotating the whole book, which is justified. That book certainly gives us what it’s meant to give and we couldn’t complain. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the book.
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“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are cultivated. For these, there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written, or badly written. That is all.”
“To define is to limit.”
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
“Never marry at all, Dorian.”
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.
“Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.”
“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
“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.”
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, 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?”
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well-written or badly written. That is all.”
“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.”
“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
“The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?”
“She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion for stirring dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. ”
“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”
“I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them to be real.”
“All art is quite useless.”
“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
“Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”
“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”
“One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.”
“You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.”
“She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.”
“We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.”
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”
“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible….”
“The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
“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.”
“They get up early because they have so much to do, and go to bed early because they have so little to think about. ”
“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.”
“Man is many things, but he is not rational.”
“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.”
“It is perfectly monstrous,’ he said, at last, ‘the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.”
“Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed.”
“It is the stupid and the ugly who have the best of it in this world”
“As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.”
“There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted.”
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