Edith Wharton was born on 24th January 1862, born into a privileged family she used her insights into the lifestyles of the rich to write famously witty and incisive short stories and novels.
To celebrate her birthday we have gathered together some quotes that would look good adorning anyone’s walls, whether they be physical or Facebook.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.”
“Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.”
“My little old dog
a heart-beat
at my feet”
“If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”
“Ah, good conversation – there’s nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”
“They are all alike you know. They hold their tongues for years and you think you’re safe, but when the opportunity comes they remember everything.”
“Everything may be labelled- but everybody is not.”
“To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom.”
“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.”
“Real reading is reflex action; the born reader reads as unconsciously as he breathes; and, to carry the analogy a degree farther, reading is no more a virtue than breathing.”
These wonderful quotes could have been uttered yesterday rather than almost a century ago; Edith Wharton was most definitely a woman ahead of her time.
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