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The Picture of Dorian Gray Quotes

He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who seemed to have disclosed to him life’s mystery. And, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was absurd to be frightened.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Dorian says that his months long friendship with Basil had never altered him. But all of a sudden he is feeling the strong influence of Lord Henry, someone who has revealed to him "life’s mystery." Dorian appears on the brink of some transformative change and admits that he is frightened.

You have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having…Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry spells out to Dorian the transient nature of his youthful beauty. He doesn’t hold back in letting him know that some day his beautiful face will become old and wrinkled and ugly.

Beauty is a form of genius – is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry says this to Dorian. Henry is the greatest facilitator of Dorian’s vanity, elevating his physical beauty to something above genius.

The gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they can quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry continues to feed Dorian’s vanity about his physical attractiveness. He talks about the fleeting nature of beauty, warning that when his youth goes his beauty will go with it. Dorian does have such fears, and in a bid to preserve his beauty at all costs they will drive him to barter his soul for eternal youth. Lilies and roses are metaphors for Dorian’s beauty and his ability to love.

Realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing…A new Hedonism – that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Lord Henry targets Dorian with the aim of making him the symbol of his "new Hedonism." Pleading with Dorian to make the most of his youth, he uses a metaphor to urge him him spend the "gold" of his days by living a wonderful life to the full and enjoying new sensations.

A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. This is the moment that Dorian first sees the portrait of himself which Basil has just finished. He is at once captivated and astonished. Is this the turning point where Dorian loses his innocence, as he drinks in the power of his own beauty and is overcome by a narcassistic vanity that will prove fatal?

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!

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Be careful what you wish for! Dorian’s life is forever changed when he wishes to remain always young and handsome like his portrait. Basil’s piece of art has captured Dorian’s remarkable beauty and he is astonished by the picture. Dorian grows immediately jealous of his portrait, because it will not grow old, as he will. In a climactic moment and fearing for his mortality, he wishes for the picture to grow old instead. He says that he would give his soul for eternal youth and so makes a Faustian bargain – Faust sold his soul to the devil in return for worldly knowledge and pleasure! This foreshadows that Dorian will lose his soul.

I know, now, that when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. While Dorian Gray is known for his breathtaking youthful handsomeness, he is very conscious of losing all of that one day. He agrees with Lord henry that youth is the only thing worth having, and vows to kill himself before old age steals that from him.

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day – mock me horribly!" The hot tears welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. The portrait of Dorian is a constant reminder to him of the fleeting nature of his youth and good looks and the inevitability of growing old. So Dorian is upset every time he looks at the picture because it is a reminder that this will happen. His joy at first seeing the painting is now replaced by anger and jealousy. This shows his ever-growing vanity. When Dorian says that the portrait will mock him horribly some day, this is foreshadowing his ultimate downfall and death.

With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. "Don’t, Basil, don’t!" he cried. "It would be murder!"

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Dorian runs to stop Basil from cutting up his portrait with a knife, pleading that it would be murder. When Basil reaches for the palette-knife to destroy the painted canvass of Dorian this is foreshadowing of when Dorian will murder Basil by stabbing him with a knife in the final chapter.

The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. "I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.
"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, strolling across to him. "Am I really like that?"
"Yes; you are just like that."
"How wonderful, Basil!"
"At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," sighed Hallward. "That is something."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Basil calls his portrait of Dorian the "real" Dorian. And that exactly what it turns out to be. Dorian continues to keep the appearance of youth while the portrait changes to reflect his inner soul – in keeping with his Faustian deal to trade his soul for eternal youth.

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3. When Lord Henry says this, he fits his own description well. For Henry ironically practices his own brand of philantrophy, but it is intellectual rather than economic. He spends countless words and speeches influencing Dorian and others he meets about his "new Hedonism." This, despite the fact that he hypocritically says influencing people is immoral.

Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow…There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one’s soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3. Lord Henry reflects on how fascinating it is to influence Dorian, whom he admits playing like an "exquisite violin." What appears to be a growing friendship between Henry and Dorian is nothing more than an exercise by Henry in the corruption of innocence – Henry is bent on projecting his hedonistic soul into Dorian and turning the impressionable young man into an unremitting follower of pleasure.

Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him – had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of Love and Death.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 3. Lord Henry has learned of the tragic fate of Dorian’s parents – his beautiful mother eloped with a penniless man who was lured into a duel and killed, his mother dying a year later. With Dorian’s lack of family, Henry decides to step in and mold and shape him into someone of his making, just like Basil turned Dorian’s physical beauty into a work of art.
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