“What the artist isalways looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body areone and indivisible: in which the outward is expressive of the inward: inwhich form reveals.”

“There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.”

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other - by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.”

“Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.”

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.”

“To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.”

“If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.”