There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
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.
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
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.
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
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.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failures.
I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.
Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
or simply:
