"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
"The turnings of life seldon show a sign-post; or rather, though the sign is always there, it is usually placed some distance back, like the notices that give warning of a bad hill or a level railway-crossing."
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Source: Edith Wharton (2014). “Edith Wharton The Dover Reader”, p.328, Courier Corporation
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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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