“Each man lived his own life, & paid his own price of living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over & over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts.
There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men & women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, & conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, & disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning-star of evil, fell from heaven, it was a rebel that he fell.”
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men & women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, & conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, & disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning-star of evil, fell from heaven, it was a rebel that he fell.”
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
