Samanta ’s Reviews > The Picture of Dorian Gray > Status Update

Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression that gives reality to things.

Women are wonderfully practical, much more practical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to say anything about marriage, and they always remind us.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God,which is the secret of religion - these are the two things that govern us.

The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. People are affraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it

There is no such thing as good influence. All influence is immoral - immoral from the scientific point of view. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes and echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part not written for him.

The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.