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."