"Don't they always go from bad to worse? There's no turning back--your old self rejects you, and shuts you out. ~Lilly Bart"
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Quote collection
Edith Wharton quotes (page 6 of 13)
254 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"traditions that have lost their meaning are the hardest of all to destroy."
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"Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death."
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"...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written."
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"It is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful."
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"In our hurried world too little value is attached to the part of the connoisseur and dilettante."
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"...and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not."
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"Inkstands and tea-cups are never as full as when one upsets them."
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"Society soon grows used to any state of things which is imposed upon it without explanation."
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"Life has a way of overgrowing its achievements as well as its ruins."
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"They belonged to that vast group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets."
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"Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair."
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"True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer's own; and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience."
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"Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying for their board."
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"Blessed are the pure in heart for they have so many more things to talk about."
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"I can't love you unless I give you up."
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"Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life."
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"I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views."
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"He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate."
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"The essence of taste is suitability. Divest the word of its prim and priggish implications, and see how it expresses the mysterious demand of the eye and mind for symmetry, harmony and order."
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