Elizabeth Bibesco citations

“Winter draws what summer paints.”

“To regret your sins of commission as much as your sins of omission is to prove yourself a most unworthy sinner.”

“What we buy belongs to us only when the price is forgotten.”

“We are bound to those we love by their imperfections — their perfections help us to explain them to others.”

“Perfect moments don't turn into half-hours.”

“Death is part of this life and not of the next.”

“Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.”

“Our losses should frequently be put on the credit side.”

“Those we love are entitled to resent the allowances we make for them.”

“Each play worth seeing should be watched a second time on the faces of the audience.”

“Life more often teaches us how to perfect our weaknesses than how to develop our strengths.”

“To be on a pedestal is to be in a corner.”

“My soul has gained the freedom of the night.”

“It is easier to be generous than to be just.”

“We learn nothing by being right.”

“The image of ourselves in the minds of others is the picture of a stranger we shall never see.”

“She is pasty and podgy, with the eyes of a currant bun, suddenly protruding with animation.”

“Miss Asquith, who was probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries … looked like a lovely figure in an Italian fresco.”

“A brilliant woman whose perpetual wit made my head swim.”

“Princess Bibesco delighted in a semi-ideal world — a world which, though having a counterpart in her experience, was to a great extent brought into being by her own temperament and, one might say, flair.”