"People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self."

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific point of view. 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 someone else’s music, and actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for."

"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."

"Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day."

"But I can’t help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves."

"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."

"Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages."