Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best for ending one

There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All inflence is immoral - immoral from the scientific point of view." "Why?" "Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

It is a sad truht, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything.The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for