Literature gives a person many opportunities. She is able to not only appeal to our imagination, drawing amazing countries, street panoramas or images of extraordinary people. The work is able to excite the human soul, make people ask questions and, finding answers to them, change their attitude to life, to oneself. Classical literary novels do not lose their popularity precisely because, despite such a long existence, they continue to reflect the realities of our time, provide food for the most active thoughts, and shape a person’s worldview.
Marginal notes
The most useful reading, according to many experts, is reading with a pencil. It allows you not only to get acquainted with the text, but also to mark for yourself special places in the book: those that coincide with your worldview cause doubt, disagreement, or require additional explanation.
This is how marginal notes appear. Of particular interest for this type of reading is Oscar Wilde’s novel “Portrait of Dorian Gray”. This work is literally parsed into quotes. They reflect the ideas of the characters about love, life, pleasures. The article will cover the most popular quotes from Dorian Gray.
Doomed to become quoted
The novel simply could not go unnoticed, and its text was doomed to remain in the reader’s memory thanks not only to an interesting plot and beautifully depicted images, but also to accurate, accurate thoughts that scattered into other areas of human life.
The novel is also interesting because it makes us think about those aspects of life that determine us in many ways: about pleasures, the position of a creative person in a soulless world. Already from the foreword, the reader gets acquainted with the main problem of the work - the relationship of aesthetic issues with the ethical standards of society, as well as the place of art in the world. “Portrait of Dorian Gray”, quotes from the foreword, will help to understand it:
Do not attribute to the artist unhealthy trends: he is allowed to portray everything.
In essence, Art is a mirror reflecting the one who looks into it.
All art is completely useless.
The main character
The character, whose name, in fact, is called the novel - Dorian Gray, personifies youth. He is just beginning to learn the adult world, its most daring, vicious and attractive aspects. The novel "Portrait of Dorian Gray", quotes from which are presented in the article, has become a wonderful depiction of the path that a pure soul passes, completely surrendered to pleasures.
Unusual portrait
Dorian gets a unique opportunity: to live forever young and beautiful, while the portrait where the young man is depicted will reflect all the changes. Slowly and especially carefully, the author of the novel presents those terrible features that the canvas acquires. It reflects how the soul of the once pure youth was perverted.
Quotes about the portrait of Dorian Gray:
Undoubtedly, it was a wonderful work of art, and the resemblance was striking.
Dorian, without answering, with a diffused look, walked past the easel, then turned to face him. At the first glance at the portrait, he involuntarily took a step back and flushed with pleasure. His eyes flashed so joyfully, as if he had seen himself for the first time.
In the faint light shaded by the yellow silk curtains, the face in the portrait seemed to him changed. The expression was something else, - cruelty was felt in the crease of the mouth.
A cry of horror escaped from the artist when he saw in the twilight a creepy face, mockingly grinning at him from the canvas. There was something in the expression of this person that revolted the soul, filling it with disgust.
The pleasures in which the hero plunged into the world also had a reverse side: each of them demanded a price. And the stronger it was, the higher the board. It’s much worse when you don’t have to give gold and diamonds for pleasure, but lose yourself, tear your soul to pieces, become a real monster.
The portrait becomes a kind of materialized double of Dorian. For society, Gray is a young man with a good origin, having a fortune, an interest in art, an ornament of any secular society, a real dandy. The face depicted on the canvas is horrifying - this is an voluptuous old man, looking at which, one can only experience disgust.
Feelings and marriage
One of the main pleasures for man has always been love, passion. In the novel, Dorian Gray also tries to know her. Quotes from the work reveal both his attitude to this bright feeling, and the opinion of Lord Henry, who, by virtue of his life experience and hedonistic attitude to life, does not share his friend’s youthful illusions.
Here are some quotes from the novel:
Love begins with the fact that a person is deceiving himself, and ends with the fact that he is deceiving another. This is usually called a novel.
For those who are faithful in love, only its banal essence is available. But the tragedy of love is known only to those who cheat.
You love everyone, and to love everyone means not to love anyone. You are all equally indifferent.
Love feeds on repetition, and only repetition turns simple lust into art. Moreover, every time you fall in love, you love for the first time. The subject of passion is changing, and passion remains the one and only. Change only strengthens it. At best, life gives a person only one great moment, and the secret of happiness is to experience this great moment as often as possible.
Dorian Gray is only able to love himself and the beauty that surrounds him. An example is his admiration for actress Sybil Wayne. He admired her game, deciding that he had a crush on her. However, as soon as the girl becomes not Juliet, but Sybila, that is, acquires real features, devoid of ideality, Dorian abandons her. Faced with a brutal reality, the girl can not cope with the grief that filled her heart, and commits suicide.
In the novel, the boldness of the thoughts expressed by Lord Henry about women and marriage is striking. His own married life is more like a deal where he and his wife exist, politely without violating each other's personal space. Lord Henry sees, first of all, the earthly, everyday essence of love. In women he has not seen anything exalted for a long time:
Women, defending themselves, always go on the offensive. And their offensive often ends in a sudden and inexplicable surrender.
Women suffer grief more easily than men, so they are created! They live by feelings alone, and they are only occupied with them.
Men marry from fatigue, women marry out of curiosity. And the marriage brings frustration to both.
A woman is the embodiment of matter triumphing over the spirit, while a man personifies the triumph of thought over morality.
The philosophy of a true hedonist
Oscar Wilde called him "Prince of Paradox." He boldly spoke out about the moral standards that prevailed in society. There was a considerable amount of truth in his words, for Lord Henry Wotton knew that souls were hidden behind external decency, origin and wealth, to whom the most heinous and base desires were not at all alien. He exposes all the evils of society to young Dorian Gray.
Here are some of Lord Henry’s quotes from Dorian Gray:
Good intentions are simply futile attempts to go against nature.
Nowadays, most people die from the creeping form of slavish prudence, and everyone realizes too late that the only thing you will never regret is our mistakes and misconceptions.
Nowadays, people know the price of everything, but have no idea about the true value.
Good intentions are checks that people write to a bank where they do not have a current account.
Lord Henry is convinced that each person is able to influence the other. As a result, one who succumbs to him begins to live under the oppression of the desires and passions of another. So he loses himself, ceases to think independently and develop.
Of particular interest is Lord Henry's theory of "new hedonism." It is she who completely absorbs young Dorian and becomes the meaning of his life. According to her, the only thing that deserves real value is youth. Only she is elusive, fleeting. It is impossible to return it, which means that it is necessary to fully enjoy the gifts that this time can bring.
In a fit, Dorian says that he would like to remain as young and beautiful forever. His words miraculously acquire literal meaning, and the hero ceases to age.
Here are quotes from youth from the "Portrait of Dorian Gray":
Youth was cheerful for no reason - this is its main charm.
We turn into disgusting puppets with persistent memories of those passions that we were too afraid of, and the temptations that we did not dare to succumb to. Youth! Youth! There is nothing like her in the world!
Conclusion
The best quotes from Dorian Gray can be easily divided into a number of thematic groups: youth, love and marriage, beauty, pleasures. The novel is perfect for reading to both teenagers whose life is just beginning to pass into the adult, and the older generation, which for some reason is in search of value guidelines.
Often in life we need advice, wise instruction, or an example. Quotes from Dorian Gray can be a great way to convey your thoughts to your interlocutor, as well as provide an opportunity to show off your erudition and knowledge in literature.