Edith WhartonBut 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… ▶361Time
Edith WhartonThere are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level and surveys the long windings of destiny. ✨ Edith Wha… ▶372Time
Edith WhartonShe wanted, passionately and persistently, two things which she believed should subsist together in any well-ordered life: amusement and respectability. ✨ Edith Wharton (201… ▶361LifeLove
Edith WhartonAs he paid the hansom and followed his wife's long train into the house he took refuge in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the most difficult in marr… ▶361ReadingReflection
Edith WhartonThe worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. ✨ The Age of Innocence ch. 34 (1920)373Philosophy
Edith WhartonHis 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. ✨… ▶373HopeTime
Edith WhartonTo know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom.362Philosophy
Edith WhartonThey seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods ✨ Edith Wharton (2005). Ethan Frome - Literary Touchstone, p.85, Prestwi… ▶373Humanity
Edith WhartonShe was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company. ✨ Edith Wharton (2015). The House of Mirth, p.60, Xist Publishing341Reading
Edith WhartonAnd 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, … ▶363DeathSadness
Edith WhartonLife is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.374Life
Edith WhartonHe had known the love that is fed on caresses and feeds them; but this passion that was closer than his bones was not to be superficially satisfied. ✨ Edith Wharton (2015). … ▶342Love
Edith Wharton[B]ut he had lived in a world in which, as he said, no one who loved ideas need hunger mentally. ✨ Edith Wharton (2012). The Age of Innocence, p.129, Courier Corporation353LoveThought
Edith WhartonThe desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts. ✨ Edith Wharton, Ogden Codman (2015). The Dec… ▶364Humanity
Edith WhartonOnce more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas. ✨ The Age of Innocence.353Thought
Edith WhartonA New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue. ✨ Edith Wharton (2011). The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, p.119, New York Review of Books343Reading
Edith WhartonAnd he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, be… ▶377DeathTruth
Edith WhartonThere is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At presen… ▶344Time
Edith WhartonLittle 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. ✨ Edith Wharton (2013). House of Mirt… ▶355LifeTime
Edith WhartonI couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; an… ▶344ThoughtTruth
Edith WhartonI 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 f… ▶377Philosophy
Edith WhartonThe visible world is a daily miracle, for those who have eyes and ears. ✨ Edith Wharton (2016). A Backward Glance, p.285, Edith Wharton312Reflection
Edith WhartonAnother unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before. ✨ The Writing of Fiction (1925) ch. 1356Reading
Edith WhartonWomen ought to be free - as free as we are,' he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences. ✨ Edith Wharton (2016). The … ▶356Reading
Edith WhartonShe 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. ✨ Edith Wharton (20… ▶312Humanity
Edith WhartonSomething he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing becaus… ▶312LifeThought
Edith WhartonIf I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London; for life in the country is the only state which h… ▶324LifePoliticsThought
Edith WhartonThere's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask. ✨ Edith Wharton (2013). House of Mirth and the Age of Innocence, p.176, Simon and Schuster302Thought
Edith Wharton“Yes, the Gorgon has dried your tears,” he said. “Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds people. What she does is just the contrary — she fastens the… ▶346HumanityLove
Edith WhartonThrough this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a langu… ▶335LifeTime
