"To define is to limit."
— Oscar Wilde
To Define Is To Limit
To define is to limit.
About this quote
Spoken by Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), delivered as the punchline of a rapid catechism on art, love, and religion. The full exchange runs: "What are you? — To define is to limit." The line encapsulates Wilde's aesthetic philosophy, drawn partly from Walter Pater, that fixed categories constrain experience and beauty. Lord Henry speaks it to Dorian as part of the sustained intellectual seduction that sets the novel's tragedy in motion.
Source
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 17 (1890)
