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The value of books is proportionate to what may be called their plasticity -- their quality of being all things to all men, of being diversely moulded by the impact of fresh forms of thought.

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
Quality
Plasticity
Values
Proportionate
Form
Fresh
Thought
Forms
May
Impact
Book
Value
Things
Called
Men
Books
Moulded

More quotes by Edith Wharton

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It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.
Edith Wharton
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A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.
Edith Wharton
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True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.
Edith Wharton
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I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes.
Edith Wharton
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I wonder why rich people always grow fat I suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them.
Edith Wharton
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I have drunk of the wine of life at last, I have known the thing best worth knowing, I have been warmed through and through, never to grow quite cold again till the end.
Edith Wharton
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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.
Edith Wharton
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What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.
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It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes.
Edith Wharton
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No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.
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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.
Edith Wharton
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It was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.
Edith Wharton
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Life is made up of compromises.
Edith Wharton
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In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.
Edith Wharton
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... even in houses commonly held to be 'booky' one finds, nine times out of ten, not a library but a book-dump.
Edith Wharton
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Any rapidly enacted episode. . .should be seen through only one pair of eyes.
Edith Wharton
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If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
Edith Wharton
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Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.
Edith Wharton
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Life is always either a tight -rope or a feather-bed . — Give me the tightrope.
Edith Wharton
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In all the arts abundance seems to be one of the surest signs of vocation.
Edith Wharton