Quote

They belonged to that vast group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets.

Edith Wharton

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Edith Wharton
Age: 75 †
Born: 1862
Born: January 24
Died: 1937
Died: August 11
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
New York City
New York
Edith Newbold Jones
Edith Newbold Jones Wharton
Life
Perform
Vast
Neglecting
Group
Executed
Groups
Belonged
Single
Puppets
Human
Surrounding
Humans
Gestures
Without
Neglect

More quotes by Edith Wharton

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The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.
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The visible world is a daily miracle, for those who have eyes and ears.
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Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed.
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In the summer New York was the only place in which one could escape from New Yorkers.
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In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.
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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
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Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.
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We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.
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Think what stupid things the people must have done with their money who say they're 'happier without'.
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The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears and I still warm hands thankfully at the old fire, though every year it is fed with the dry wood of more old memories.
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Everything may be labelled- but everybody is not.
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He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.
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there are lots of ways of answering a letter - and writing doesn't happen to be mine.
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He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.
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Then stay with me a little longer,' Madame Olenska said in a low tone, just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, but it thrilled him like a caress.
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I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay at home and mind the baby. Still less am I interested in scholarships for female Yids.
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She had been bored all afternoon by Percy Gryce... but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptibilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.
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The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future.
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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.
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He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shriveling up like ghosts at sunrise.
Edith Wharton