Everybody who does anything at all does too much.

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

Nothing is more perplexing to a man than the mental process of a woman who reasons her emotions.

Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her-of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated-he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch.

The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!

There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you - we are sure to see each other again - but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you - I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you.

Everything may be labelled- but everybody is not.