Edith Wharton
32 quotes
Biography
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it."
"Each time you happen to me all over again."
"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul."
"Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well-you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me."
"To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom."
"Don't you ever mind,"she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?"
"Her failure was a useful preliminary to success."
"There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time."
"If only wed stop trying to be happy wed have a pretty good time."
"It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counselor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues."
"A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue."
"The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it."
"He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced."
"No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity."
"After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others that (one is fairly sure) don't exist — or exist in a less measure."
"I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie."
"Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone."
"How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?"
"True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision."
"When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say."
"An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences."
"It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes."
"I can't love you unless I give you up."
"In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once."
"It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them."