And take my hands, they'll understand
Take my heart, pull it apart
And take my brain, or what remains
And throw it all away
'Cause I've grown tired of this body
A cumbersome and heavy body

"I'd like to drop my trousers to the world
I am a man of means, of slender means"

"And when I'm lying in my bed
I think about life
And I think about death
And neither one particularly appeals to me

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock I'd probably lie
In the middle of the street and die
I'd lie down and die"

Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

–Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Painting: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May by Thomas Mostyn (1864-1930)

Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.

–Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray.

It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. 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. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

–Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

–Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray.