Lord Henry Wotton Quotes

A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Lord Henry’s eyebrows are raised when Basil tells him that he won’t be sending his portrait of Dorian to the Grosvenor or anywhere else for public display. Urging him to do so, he tells Basil that it is "the best thing you have never done" and such a portrait would make him the envy of others throughout England. Basil is seen in the novel as the artist metaphor for Oscar Wilde himself.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Wilde’s novel is full of delicious epigrams, this being one of his more witty ones. Lord Henry says the line to Basil because he thinks the artist is "silly" not to put his portrait of Dorian on show. Painters will do anything in the world to gain a reputation, but as soon as they have one, they seem to want to throw it away, Lord Henry remarks.

Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are – my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks – we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Basil tells Lord Henry that it is better not to be different than one’s fellows. He warns that Lord Henry, Basil and Dorian will suffer for the gifts the gods have given them – position and wealth, art, and good looks. There is a great deal of foreshadowing here of tragic consequences to come.

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Lord Henry is a character with a very cynical view on marriage. To him it involves playing a role where you merely act the part of being married in public for appearances sake, and then carry on as you wish in private. For him that means indulging his hedonism. Providing us with an insight into this loveless marital arrangement, he goes on to say: "I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet – we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke’s – we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it – much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me." Lord Henry certainly doesn’t love his wife, but he certainly loves himself!

I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. After Lord Henry describes marriage as a life of mutual deception between the spouses, Basil say that he hates the way Henry talks about his married life. He believes that Henry is essentially a good husband and his cynacism is just a pose. Henry never says a moral thing, but he never does a wrong thing, says Basil. Basil is a decent man who thoroughly believes in the goodness of people.

I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Lord Henry is a snob and suggests that drunkenness, stupidity and immorality are the preserve of the lower classes. When the upper classes appropriate their vices, he says – tongue in cheek – that he can understand their rage.

Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. Lord Henry is responding to the artist Basil’s involvement with the beautiful Dorian Gray. We all crave for something that endures, but physical beauty does not. Henry goes on to say: "In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place."

"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he said. "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what she said of him. Don’t spoil him. Don’t try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvelous people in it. Don’t take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.
"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1. This passage shows how artist Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton will be the two conflicting characters throughout Wilde’s only novel. Here Basil speaks to Lord Henry before Dorian comes into his home studio. Wary of the bad influence Henry would have on Dorian’s innocent and beautiful nature, Basil asks him not to influence his young friend Dorian. The cynical Henry smiles and gives Basil a non-commital reply, saying that Basil is talking nonsense.

Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. In one of the most important chapters of the novel, we are introduced to Dorian Gray. Lord Henry meets the young man in Basil’s studio for the first time and is struck by his incredible physical beauty. He also has the innocence and purity of youth. Henry is not surprised Basil worships him.

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 someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry speaks to Dorian about how all influence is immoral. If a person is influenced you take away who they are, they become "an actor of a part that has not been written for him." That is precisely what happens to Dorian, who begins to act on Henry’s words and even speak like him, as Henry sets out on a mission to reshape and mold Dorian to act and think like him. Basil takes notice of this when he observes in Chapter 4: "It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that."

The aim of life is self-development. To realise 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 one’s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. The dandy Lord Henry is a metaphor of Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic view on lifestyle. Here Henry uses his influence to soften up Dorian, so that he can win him over as a disciple of his philosophy of "New Hedonism." He accuses people of being afraid of themselves. He presents a vision of just selfishly living for yourself and feeding your own soul. Those who help others and do charitable works only "starve" their own souls, he claims.

I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream – I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal – to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry trumpets the hedonistic way of life. He believes that people should be free to follow the unbridled pursuit of pleasure – "give form to every feeling." Self-denial is not in his lexicon. He thinks that simple fear is what holds us back, fear of being fully ourselves. Henry goes on to say: "But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives."
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