Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One’s days were too brief to take the burden of another’s errors on one’s shoulders. Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault.
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 16. In the opium Dorian wonders if the ruin of the life of his young friend Adrian Singleton could be blamed on him, as Basil had done. But he quickly rejects this and reasons that people are responsible for their own lives. Dorian shows a complete lack of self-awareness by absolving himself for responsibility for introducing Singleton to the opium dens.