"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
"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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Source: Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.4504, Delphi Classics
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"The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts."
"I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!! What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast."
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