— The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Chapter 2
About this quote
हिन्दी में
प्रलोभन से छुटकारा पाने का एकमात्र तरीका यही है — उसके आगे झुक जाना।
What it means
The sentence works by quietly using get rid of in two senses at once. Yielding does end the tension — the arguing with yourself stops, the thought goes quiet — and the line invites you to mistake that silence for the desire being gone. What actually disappears is the resistance, which is the only part that was uncomfortable.
It is worth keeping because the psychology in it is half right and the word only is entirely wrong. Some wants really do shrink on contact: the idealised dish, the book everyone recommends, the curiosity that survives purely because it was never satisfied. Others are built to grow by being fed, and for those the prescription is not a cure but a description of how the habit was formed. Read as a rule of conduct it is one of the most elegantly packaged bad arguments in English, which is roughly the point of packaging it that well.
What it teaches you
Sort your temptations by what happens afterwards rather than by how loud they are now. If giving in once leaves the thing quieter for weeks, it was mostly curiosity and the aphorism holds. If giving in leaves it louder by next Tuesday, you have fed something rather than settled it — and no amount of further yielding will finish the job, because each round is what installs the next one.
अर्थ और सीख
इस पंक्ति का दावा है कि प्रलोभन को ख़त्म करने का एकमात्र रास्ता उसे पूरा कर देना है — पर यहाँ चालाकी शब्दों में छिपी है। झुक जाने से इच्छा नहीं मिटती, सिर्फ़ भीतर चल रही खींचतान शांत हो जाती है, और उसी चुप्पी को हम मुक्ति समझ बैठते हैं। सबक़ यह है कि हर इच्छा एक जैसी नहीं होती: कुछ चीज़ें एक बार चख लेने पर सचमुच छूट जाती हैं, और कुछ हर बार पूरी करने पर और गहरी जड़ पकड़ लेती हैं — फ़र्क़ पहचानने का तरीक़ा यह देखना है कि एक हफ़्ते बाद वह इच्छा कमज़ोर हुई या और तेज़।
Where it comes from
Lord Henry Wotton, early in the novel, doing what he does throughout: producing a paradox so well-shaped that Dorian mistakes it for wisdom.
Wilde is not endorsing it. The book is, among other things, a demonstration of what happens to a young man who takes Lord Henry’s epigrams as instructions. The aphorism is the bait; the portrait is the bill.
