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.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.
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.
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.
An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.
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!
The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
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.
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?
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.
Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.
every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.
Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
or simply:
