Lord Henry Wotton

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Lord Henry Wotton is one of the leading characters of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Some critics consider Lord Henry to be responsible for Dorian Gray's mental awakening, which ultimately leads to the young man's downfall. Blame has also been given to Dorian himself as well as Basil for producing the picture. He forces the naïve boy to realize that he is beautiful and admires his youth, "the one thing worth having." Lord Henry, who meets Dorian through their mutual friend, the artist Basil Hallward, has paradoxical views on life, marriage, and the world in general and is known for his witty repartee, somewhat like Oscar Wilde himself.

There is also an unmistakeable allusion to "old harry" (the devil) in the character's name. Dorian refers to him as Harry and he is continually tempting Dorian and talking him into a more immoral frame of mind.

Lord Henry Wotton was portrayed by actor Bela Lugosi in a film version of the novel released in Austria-Hungary on January 21, 1918. He was also played by George Sanders in the 1945 film version.

The character is said to be based on Lord Ronald Sutherland-Leveson-Gower.

[edit] Quotes

• Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes... something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! ...The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.

• The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

• 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. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

• Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cavemen had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

• My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

• As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others.

• Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.

• There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating — people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

• We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

• We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

• To define is to limit.

• I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their characters, and my enemies for their brains. A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.