The Picture of Dorian Grey Character Sketches Through Their Phrases I

Chapter I Lord Henry Wotton. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose. With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. None of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies. And how delightful other people's emotions were! - much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's friends--those were the fascinating things in life. Basil Hallward. It is better not to be different from one's