Edith Wharton Life Quotations

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

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

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

Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.

Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death.

We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?

Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any.

Yes, one gets over things. But there are certain memories one can't bit on.

Life is made up of compromises.

One can remain alive ... if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity interested in big things and happy in small ways.