Wilde put down his many uniquely Wildesque
epigrams into the Picture of Dorian Gray.
Such as " Conscience and cowardice are really
the same thing, Basil. Conscience is the trade name of the firm. That is
all"
" Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love. It
is the faithless who know love's tragedies"
"There is only one thing
worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about"
"The
only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."
" It is better
to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be
ugly."
And here we have an icing on the cake " As for the virtuous poor , one can pity them of course ,
but one cannot possibly admire them".
I think Oscar is a artist who uses the page as his canvas and the written word as his paint. His wits cuts at the human condition like a scalpel with depth and precision. I believe Dorian Gray is his finest work.
