Quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.

Yes, murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; and when they grow older they know it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.

It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“And alien tears will fill for him pity's long broken urn. For his mourners will all be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“
لن يستعيد إنسان شبابه إلّا إذا ارتكب حماقاته من جديد .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“الملل هو الخطيئة الوحيدة التي لا يمكن أن تغتفر .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe, and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings sublte memories with it, a line from a piece of music that you had ceased to play--I tell you Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“الإحساس أثمن ما في الوجود و في سبيل الإحساس يهون كلّ شيء .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“إنّ منشأ احترامنا للآخرين هو خوفنا من ألّا يحترمنا الآخرون .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“واجب الإنسان الأوّل هو واجبه نحو نفسه .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“إنّ أوّل ما تفعله امرأة حين تسلبها عشيقها هو أن تسلب امرأة أخرى عشيقها .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“القوّة الصارمة يمكن احتمالها , أمّا المنطق الصارم فلا يمكن احتماله , و ليس من العدل استخدامه .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“إنّ عبارات الوفاء تنشر الرهبة في نفوسنا فنحن نخاف من الإخلاص الدائم خوفنا من الأبديّة .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“
إنّ جمال الحياة الحياة في ألوانها الخاطفة , أمّا التفاصيل الصغيرة فجديرة بالنسيان , فالتفاصيل أشياء مبتذلة ! .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“أحب أن أقابل في الرجال من لهم مستقبل و في النساء من لهنّ ماض .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“الجبن و الضمير هما اسمان لمدلول واحد , و كل ما هنالك أن الضمير هو الاسم الرسمي , الماركة المسجّلة كما يقولون .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“La única manera de librarse de la tentación es ceder ante ella. Si se resiste, el alma enferma, anhelando lo que ella misma se ha prohibido, deseando lo que sus leyes monstruosas han hecho monstruoso e ilegal”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.

American novels, answered Lord Henry.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“لا جدال في أنّ العبقرية أطول اجلا من الجمال , وهذه أفظع مأساة في حياتنا ,و لذلك ترانا نحشو أدمغتنا بالحقائق و الترهات على السواء كيلا نفقد أمكنتنا من الحياة , و هي غاية سخيفة ! .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“
الشباب هو كلّ ما يستحقّ أن نتمنّاه لأنفسنا في الحياة .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“
إنّ الروح لا تخلو من المادّيّة والمادّة تعرف لحظات الوجد الروحيّ , و لقد تسمو الحواسّ و تصو , و لقد يظلم العقل و يكفهرّ !!
وهل منّا من يعلم أين تنتهي نوازع الجسد و تبتدئ نوازع الروح ؟!! ”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“أليس جائزا أنّ الفكر الذي يؤثّر في الكائنات الحيّة مستطيع كذلك أن يؤثّر في الكائنات الجامدة .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“من النساء من يتعزّين عن غرامهنّ المفقود باكتشاف محاسن أزواجهنّ فجأة .”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

“Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Fantastic Tales

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Popular quotes

“But who is this self that is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems that *you* yourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again, for *your* benefit and behoof, only through that unselfishness you are procuring your "true benefit." You are to benefit *yourself*, and yet you are not to seek *your* benefit”
― Max Stirner, quote from The Ego and Its Own

“Oh ! qu'on m'aille donc, au lieu de cela, chercher quelque jeune vicaire, quelque vieux curé, au hasard, dans la première paroisse venue, qu'on le prenne au coin de son feu, lisant son livre et ne s'attendant à rien, et qu'on lui dise :
– Il y a un homme qui va mourir, et il faut que ce soit vous qui le consoliez. Il faut que vous soyez là quand on lui liera les mains, là quand on lui coupera les cheveux; que vous montiez dans sa charrette avec votre crucifix pour lui cacher le bourreau; que vous soyez cahoté avec lui par le pavé jusqu'à la Grève : que vous traversiez avec lui l'horrible foule buveuse de sang; que vous l'embrassiez au pied de l'échafaud, et que vous restiez jusqu'à ce que la tête soit ici et le corps là.
Alors, qu'on me l'amène, tout palpitant, tout frissonnant de la tête aux pieds; qu'on me jette entre ses bras, à ses genoux; et il pleurera, et nous pleurerons, et il sera éloquent, et je serais consolé, et mon cœur se dégonflera dans le sien, et il prendra mon âme, et je prendrais son Dieu.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Last Day of a Condemned Man

“Ask them, then. ...Ask them when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them, when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just want us to get it.”
― James Grady, quote from Six Days of the Condor

“when a man steals your wife, there's no better revenge than to let him keep her.”
― Ashwin Sanghi, quote from Chanakya's Chant

“Si se estudia un problema con orden y método, no hay dificultad alguna en resolverlo (Hércules Poirot)”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death in the Clouds

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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