It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words…The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 17. Wilde was a master wordsmith who liked to dazzle people with his brilliant wit and wordplay. Lord Henry is the character in the novel who most speaks like the author and, also like Wilde, often talks in aphorisms. Wilde once said that Lord Henry was "what the world thinks me." The sophisticated Henry makes clear in this passage that has no time for plain speaking and the unlovely words of other people. He prefers "lovely names" to be given to things and offers us a witty epigram about a spade to press home his point.