Chapter 2 Quotes Flashcards
Lord Henry on the overcoming of hereditary fears, nature v nurture
‘Courage has gone out of our race… The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God…
which is the secret of religion- these are the two things that govern us’
Dorian description
‘Swinging round on the music-stool in a wilful petulant manner…
‘When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush coloured his cheeks for a second’
Shows his innocence and boyhood, but also bad characteristics
Dorian description from Lord Henry
‘Yes he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one…
trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youths passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Halward worshipped him.’
Basil about Lord Henry to Dorian
‘He has a very bad influence over all his friends with the…
single exception of myself’
Lord Henry to Dorian
‘There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr Gray. All influence is immoral- immoral from the scientific view. Why?
Because to influence a person is to give him ones own soul’…‘he becomes an school of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that had not been written for him’
ironic as Lord Henry is the influencer
Lord Henry
‘I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream…
I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy’
invites us to think of a new hedonism
Lord Henry
‘The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it. And your soul grows sick with longing for the things…
it had forbidden to itself. With desire for what it’s monstrous laws have made monsterous and unlawful’
he blames the laws and not the people for the desires within. In Dracula the people are very much blamed for this, shown by Lucy’s death
Lord Henry to Dorian
‘You, mr Gray, you yourself with your rose red youth and your…
rose white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day dreams and sleep dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame’
white-purity, angelic, pure, clean
red- exciting, love and sexuality
D on Lord Henry’s word
‘Had touched some secret chord that had never…
been touched before. But that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses’
Lord Henry begins to play him like a musical instrument
Dorian after speaking to Lord Henry
‘Life suddenly became fiery coloured to him. It seemed to him that…
he had been walking in fire’
fire-danger and pain yet exciting and bright
Lord Henry
‘That is one of the great secrets of life- to cure…
the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul’
hedonism, Dorian uses this line to justify his opium trip later in the book
Lord Henry to Dorian
‘Because you have the most marvellous youth…
and youth is the one thing worth having’
the importance and value of youth is established
Lord Henry to Dorian
‘Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly. When thought has seared your forehead with its lines and passion…
branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly’
makes Dorian fear aging
Lord Henry
‘Beauty is a form of genius, is higher, indeed, than genius as…
it needs no explanation’
Lord Henry
‘Beauty is…
the wonder of wonders’
