A temperament capable of receiving, through an imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate a work of art.

It is he who has broken the bond of marriage - not I. I only break its bondage.

There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late

What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. they would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. (Dorian Gray regarding his portrait)

Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.