Think what stupid things the people must have done with their money who say they're 'happier without'.

Beauty (was)a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.

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

No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

What a shame it is for a nation to be developing without a sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast.

The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder—the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?

...I have always lived on contrasts! To me the only death is monotony. Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins.