Dorian Gray: The all-you-need Quote Grid

Quote	Technique	Analysis
I am jealous of everything whose  beauty does not die.	Personification	Basil’s attachment to Dorian’s youth hints at deeper emotions, while exposing  the fragility of beauty and time.
To be good is to be in harmony with oneself.	Epigram	Challenges traditional moral frameworks,  presenting self-alignment as  more authentic than socially dictated virtue.
Each man sees his own sin  in Dorian Gray.	Symbolism	Dorian becomes a mirror of corruption;  Wilde critiques society’s tendency  to externalise guilt rather than confront it.
He would destroy the past, and with it,  destroy its record, the hideous face  on the canvas.	Symbolism	Dorian’s final act shows his desire to erase  guilt rather than confront it,  highlighting the consequences of  a life lived without remorse.
He grew more and more enamoured of  his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.	Parallelism	Emphasises the duality between  Dorian’s outer perfection and inner decay— a core structural motif of the novel.
All art is quite useless.	Provocation / Aphorism	Ends the preface with a deliberately  jarring statement, forcing the reader  to question art’s purpose —  and setting the tone for the novel’s paradoxes.
Behind every exquisite thing that existed,  there was something tragic.	Juxtaposition	Links beauty to sorrow, suggesting that external perfection often conceals  inner suffering—a core theme  embodied in the portrait.
You have the most marvellous youth,  and youth is the one thing worth having.	Hyperbole	Lord Henry’s obsession with youth underscores  society's shallow values  and Dorian’s fatal decision to preserve  beauty at any cost.
The conscience of man is not the voice  of God, but the voice of man.	Philosophical assertion	Rejects divine morality, reinforcing Wilde’s  theme that guilt and ethics  are internal and subjective.
The curves of her lips rewrote history.	Metaphor	Romanticises Sibyl’s power as an actress,  linking her art to transformation— but also foreshadows how fiction and reality blur fatally.
The portrait was to bear the burden  of his shame: that was all.	Metaphor	The painting becomes a living symbol of  conscience, allowing Dorian  to separate his public image from his internal corruption.
The only way to get rid of  a temptation is to yield to it.	Paradox	Wilde challenges conventional morality by  presenting indulgence as  the path to freedom, setting the tone for Dorian's descent into hedonism.
There is no such thing as a moral  or an immoral book.	Aphorism	Wilde defends aestheticism, asserting that art should  not be judged by moral standards—an  idea at the novel's philosophical heart.
Experience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men  gave to their mistakes.	Epigram	Wilde mocks the idea of wisdom gained through suffering, questioning  traditional ideas of growth and morality.
There was something in his face that  made one trust him at once.  All the candour of youth was there,  as well as all youth’s passionate purity.	Irony	Wilde uses dramatic irony—Dorian’s appearance hides his true nature,  criticising the disconnect between image and reality.