Oscar Wilde Quotes

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 4. Lord Henry is thinking about ethnics and morals. His train of thought continues: "Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy." Henry has a cynical view about morality and doesn’t see experience as having any motivating power to make us better people. All experience showed was that our future would be the same as our past, but we would enjoy our sins more in the future. As an aesthete Henry sees no distinction between moral and immoral acts.