The Picture of Dorian Gray sentence starters
Stolen straight from Oscar Wilde’s novel courtesy of @spoilers-ahead-647 ! Feel free to change pronouns/tense.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.
He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.
To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.
People are afraid of themselves. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself.
Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it.
The bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.
Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
You know you believe it all.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.
With your personality there is nothing you could not do.
The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be.
Man is many things, but he is not rational.
Ah! This morning! You have lived since then.
I wish I could trust myself.
What I want is information; not useful information, of course; useless information.
I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
I can sympathize with everything, except suffering.
The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.
Humanity takes itself too seriously.
If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different.
People like you—the willful sunbeams of life—don’t commit crimes.
To have ruined oneself over poetry is an honour.
People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Medieval art is charming, but medieval emotions are out of date.
I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
Conscience makes egotists of us all.
There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.
This world and I are on excellent terms.
Moderation is a fatal thing.
I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.
You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be.
The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.
Your cynicism is simply a pose.
Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.
I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows.
She is a peacock in everything but beauty.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
You like everyone; that is to say, you are indifferent to everyone.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.
He is all my art to me now.
There is nothing that art cannot express,
You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him.
My heart shall never be put under their microscope.
I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said.
You can’t feel what I feel. You change too often.
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.
The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.
The world is wide, and has many marvelous people in it.
Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?
He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception of myself.
I suppose he has been paying you compliments.
You mustn’t believe a word that he says.
Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it.
He won’t like you the better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own.
If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
Most people discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.
All I want now is to look at life.
You may come and look at it with me, if you care to.
People know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.
Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.
The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.
Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away.
Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
You are much better than you pretend to be.
Love is a more wonderful thing than art.
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.
It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
You call yesterday the past?
The past can always be annihilated. But the future is inevitable.
Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating.
Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrées.
I am tired of myself tonight.
With such blood as he has in his veins, how could his record be clean?
You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face.
Each of us has heaven and hell in him.
You have done enough evil in your life.
You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.
I give the truths of tomorrow.
I prefer the mistakes of today.
