Edith Wharton

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the …

In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.

I can't love you unless I give you up.

It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.

An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

Nancy, the most beautiful town in France, has never been as beautiful as now.

When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say.

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.

Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.

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, than the marriage tie.

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others that (one is fairly sure) don't exist — or exist in a less measure.

No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the …

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.

It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counselor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be The candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Set wide the window. Let me drink the day. I loved light ever, light in eye and brain — No tapers mirrored in long palace floors, Nor dedicated depths of silent aisles, But just the common dusty wind-blown day That roofs earth's millions.