Dorain Gray Chapter 8

"to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering"(100).
sanguine- cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, confident

"Did it merel take cognizance of what passed within the soul?"(109).
cognizance- awareness, realization, or knowledge



"The one charm of the past is that it is in the past"(106).

• Many people prefer that certain past actions remain in their past. What people have done, may not always be good. The past can contain bad choices, actions, and decisions, just as Dorian's did in his treatment of Sybil. There is nothing charming or positive about these past actions. Not much that we look back on is positive. However, the one positive thing about the past is that it is in the past. It already happened, and we can put it behind us, learn from it, and move on.

"there is a fatality about good resolutions-- that they are always made too late"(104).

• Very often, people do not make good choices until after they make a bad one. Even more often than that, it is too late to make up for the bad decison. We are seldom given second chances at making decisions in life. It is easy to make choices on a whim, without thinking for very long about the consequences of our actions. However, these actions sometimes bring us bad results. It is easy to make a good decision after a bad decision. The negative effects of a decision shed light on how we should have acted. Therefore, we try to make up for it by making a good resolution, after a bad one, when it comes too late.