661 Quotes by Edith Wharton

There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time.

Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.

To be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it?

The other producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia. Luckily the inconsequent life is not the only alternative; for caprice is as ruinous as routine. Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

Poetry and art are the breath of life to her.

In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires.

Who's 'they'? Why don't you all get together and be 'they' yourselves?

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