100 Motivational Quotes By Edith Wharton That Throw Light On The Beauty Of Life
Author of ‘The Age of Innocence’ that earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1920, Edith Wharton was a multi-talented figure of the early 20th century. An author, short story writer, novelist and designer, Wharton’s cutting edge was her work that was directed on the contemporary upper-class society - its qualms, norms and privileges. Born into one such family herself, she gave an inside view of America's privileged class from her first-hand experience. Wharton’s stories have an air of natural wit and humor to them. Written with a brilliant command over language, she gave an insight view of the social and psychological problems of the aristocratic New York society. Most of her stories revolved around the tragic heroes and heroines who were above-average intellectually and emotionally and wanted more out of life than mere luxuries. They challenged the social taboos at every step of their life but could not do much to bring in a social change or overcome the barriers of social convention. Being a member of the privileged class, most of Wharton’s works reflected her personal experiences, opinions and passions. The same can be said for her quotes too that give a new outlook to life and touch a wide variety of genres including humor, life, sadness, education, knowledge, class, faith and so on. Explore some of the top quotes by Edith Wharton.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.
Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
My little old dog a heart-beat at my feet
Life is always either a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.
If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be The candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Each time you happen to me all over again.
The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!
Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.
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.
I don't know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made it interesting.
We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?
My little dog—a heartbeat at my feet.
She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.
In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.
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.
Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair.
What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.
Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.
I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met-it may be another hundred before we meet again.
She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.
The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humor or irony pitched in exactly the same key, so that their joint glances on any subject cross like interarching searchlights.
Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.
It was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.
His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.
But after a moment a sense of waste and ruin overcame him. There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well been half the world apart.
And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities.
They are all alike you know. They hold their tongues for years and you think you're safe, but when the opportunity comes they remember everything.
...though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.
Everything may be labelled- but everybody is not.
