Quotes About Lord Henry

What a fuss people make about fidelity! exclaimed Lord Henry. Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.

What nonsense people talk about happy marriages! exclaimed Lord Henry. A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. American novels, answered Lord Henry.

I don't want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice. Lord Henry smiled. People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

I don't think I am heartless. Do you?' 'You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,' answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile.

My dear boy, said Lord Henry, smiling, anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not, by any means, an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which men can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate.

Love is a more wonderful thing than art.' 'They are both simply forms of imitation,' remarked Lord Henry.

I have known everything, said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his eyes, but I am always ready for a new emotion.

Women treat us just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them', answered Lord Henry, toying with some fruits. 'I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us,' murmured Dorian Gray, gravely. 'They create Love in our natures. They have a right to demand it bac'k.

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies. And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There

Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry. Except in America, rejoined Lord Henry languidly.