The Picture of Dorian Gray Quotes

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian wakes up to a bunch of letters that he opens disinterestedly. They are said to contain "the usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every morning during the season." But among them is one very important letter from Lord Henry, which he puts aside and leaves unopened. It would tell him that Sibyl Vane has killed herself with poison. This quote is also be a reminder of how in this century we too much time on technology and cell phones and social media, unncessary things which have become today’s necessities.

His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian reflects on his "unreal and selfish love" for Sibyl and hopes that it will be transformed into something nobler. He would do this with the help of the portrait, a visible symbol of his corruption, which would be his conscience and he would use to guide him through life. As the battle for his soul between good and evil continues, he appears to find his moral compass and vows to follow the noble path. He does not yet know about Sibyl’s suicide.

I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don’t sneer at it, Harry, any more – at least not before me. I want to be good. I can’t bear the idea of my soul being hideous.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. When Lord Henry tells Dorian not to think about what has happened, that it was not his fault, Dorian agrees, saying that he plans to be good from now on. But they are talking at cross-purposes: Henry is talking about Sibyl Vane’s suicide, but Dorian, not yet aware of her death, is referring to his cruel treatment of Sibyl.

"So I have murdered Sybil Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, "murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for that."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian is shocked when Lord Henry brings him the news of Sibyl’s suicide. He feels responsible and in a simile likens her suicide to his cutting her throat with a knife. Yet he doesn’t seem troubled by remorse and he comments that the roses still look as beautiful as ever. On the surface everything appears "lovely," it is only the portrait that shows Dorian’s increasing moral decay. The reference to "her little throat" suggests Sibyl’s childlike innocence. In his cruelty to her, Dorian has effectively murdered his own innocence, placing himself on the road to corruption.

There is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian believes that Sibyl who represented goodness would have kept him straight if she had lived. So he calls her selfish for killing herself. He has no understanding that his actions led to Sibyl’s death and he is only focused on the pain it is causing him. So it is ironic of him to call her selfish, when that description applies more so to him.

The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry says this to Dorian, after Dorian expresses the view that Sibyl if she had lived would have kept him straight. Henry goes on to say: "If you had married this girl, you would have been wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman’s husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject – which, of course, I would not have allowed – but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure." Henry is not a big fan of the institution of marriage, or of women.

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak…They are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry says this after listening to Dorian’s excuses for resolving too late to reconcile with Sibyl – Dorian complained that the tragedy of her death had prevented him from doing what was right. Henry dismisses good resolutions as "pure vanity."

And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Explaining to Lord Henry his reaction to Sibyl’s suicide, Dorian sounds quite heartless and most certainly did not love her. He admits that he is not "wounded" by the tragedy of her death and it unaffected him. He feels like a spectator to a play and uses a simile to coldly compare Sibyl taking her life to "a wonderful ending to a wonderful play." Dorian’s sense of morality and of right and wrong are slipping away from him.

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry is speaking to Dorian about Sibyl’s suicide and why this tragedy doesn’t affect Dorian as it should. Henry has no time for sentiment or emotion, as evident in his cold dismissal of Sibyl’s death as "inartistic" with its "crude violence" and "lack of style."

Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me – there have not been very many, but there have been some – have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry is actually envious of Dorian because Sibyl has killed herself for love of him. He views her final exit as her dramatic gift of love to Dorian. It is an experience that Henry wishes he had, lamenting the fact that his lovers never killed themselves but decided to carry on living.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry comforts Dorian after the suicide of his lover Sibyl. Henry bemoans the tendency for former female lovers to "go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals." Then Henry goes on to say the words quoted above. What Henry is advising is that Sibyl’s death is irrelevant and Dorian shouldn’t think about it as it will only impede him in his goals.

"I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian.
"There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has always poppies in her hands."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. When Dorian says this he doesn’t mean he is literally going to sow poppies in his garden. This is a metaphor meaning that he is going to mourn the death of Sibyl Vane, poppies being a symbol of remembrance and the garden signifying life. Lord Henry tells him that there is no need to mourn, that life will continue to produce occasions of mourning – this is foreshadowing of further deaths to come.

There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry is really impressed by Sibyl’s act of suicide. He is trying to persuade Dorian not to wallow in sadness and guilt, but instead to view Sibyl’s suicide as a beautiful and the ultimate artistic act of deathless love for him.

But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy…The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare’s plays and left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare’s music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don’t waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. In his attempt to comfort Dorian after Sibyl’s death, Lord Henry creates an alternative reality. Sibyl only existed in plays and the dramatic art of theater, he says. She never really lived and so she hasn’t really died, he rationalizes in his replacement of reality. Henry portrays Sibyl as too innocent for real life, for when she touched it, it marred and she died. Henry is not emotionally moved by Sibyl’s death and there is a callous tone when he speaks about it here.

"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do."
"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?"
"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you."

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian’s narcassism comes to the fore here when Lord Henry spells out the endless possibilities ahead for him because of his good looks. Dorian worries about losing that bloom of youth and becoming old and haggard.

I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Lord Henry continues his toxic influence on Dorian, sharing with him more of his outrageously misogynistic views and inappropriate comments on women, which no woman could possibly agree with. He sees them as loving to be dominated, slaves to men, and actually appreciating cruelty. This is what one online book reviewer Caroline Asgard says of this passage on her Obscura Undead blog: "One quote that really stood out to me which I found disgusting, obviously said by Henry. This really shows you what a disgusting guy he is, and why Dorian turned out the way he did."

As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No; there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vane’s death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. After Lord Henry leaves, Dorian goes to check the portrait again. He finds there is no further change since he learned the news of Sibyl’s death. He thinks that the portrait received the news of the death before he had known it and the vicious cruelty on the mouth had appeared when Sibyl drank the poison. Dorian is fascinated and hopes to see any further change in the picture take place before his eyes.

Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins – he was to have all these
things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. After Dorian cruelly and coldly turns his back on Sibyl which results in her suicide, Basil’s portait of him changes and a look of vicious cruelty mars the lines of the mouth. He understands right away what this means for him – the portrait will serve as a metaphor for the state of his soul and conscience. The more corrupt these become the more the picture will portray Dorian’s moral decay and ugliness.

For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain unchanged. And yet who, that knew anything about Life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian considers praying to undo the connection between his soul and his portrait, which has altered to reflect the growing ugliness of his soul, while he stays in the bloom of youth. But he quickly dismisses this idea, choosing to remain young and beautiful instead. With a touch of dramatic irony, he says that anyone who knew anything about life would make the same choice – Dorian is too young and inexperienced to weigh up the cost of making that choice.

For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 8. Dorian is now comfortable with the fact that he will be eternally young, despite having traded his soul for it. So he will take pleasure in watching the changing portrait, a magical mirror that will show him his own soul. When the face in the picture crumbles into a bloodless mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he will enjoy the beauty of youth. His portrait has turned into something supernatural, a picture of his changing soul. At this stage Dorian is the complete narcissist.

I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

– Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 9. Dorian makes this response when Basil criticizes him for going to the opera while Sibyl is lying dead. The painter is agast that Dorian shows no remorse over her suicide. But Dorian is determined not to be a slave to his emotions, but vows to use and enjoy and dominate them, suggesting that Bad Dorian has emerged victorious over Good Dorian in the battle for his morality and soul.
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