The only way to get rid of a temptation is…

The paradox belongs to the long speech Lord Henry Wotton makes in chapter 2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, in the studio where Basil Hallward is painting Dorian’s portrait. The painter, deep in his work, notices only that a new look has come into the young man’s face. Lord Henry argues that self-denial poisons our lives: “We are punished for our refusals.” The body sins once and is done with its sin. Then comes the line, and its sequel: resist, “and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.” Dorian is shaken: “Stop! you bewilder me.”

Wilde first published the novel in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, then enlarged it into a book in 1891. The scene is decisive: later in the same chapter, looking at the finished portrait, Dorian wishes that the picture might grow old in his place. Lord Henry’s elegant paradoxes set the whole tragedy in motion.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2 (Lord Henry), 1891

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work