Hi everyone! Currently, I am reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and I am loving it! So to celebrate my love for it, I have decided to list my top 10 favorite quotes so far! The quotes will not be be listed in terms of rank, rather, which ones you encounter first. I hope you enjoy! If you haven’t read The Picture of Dorian Gray get on it!
1. “The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.”
2. "Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.”
3. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
4. “When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others.”
5. “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 to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.”
6. "He wants to enslave you." "I shudder at the thought of being free." "I want you to beware of him." "To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him." (Note; this is an interaction between two characters. So although it’s technically four quotes, I have it listed as one).
7. “Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear.
8. “I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit."
9. “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.”
10. “One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.”