“We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours.”
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Edith Wharton 103
American novelist, short story writer, designer 1862–1937Related quotes
Election campaign launch, February 14, 1996.
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing
Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Introduction
“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.”
“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 6, pp. 117-118
Context: My belief is that if we live another century or so — I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals — and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.
“For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.”
Dedication, later published as "A Prayer in Time of War"
A Belgian Christmas Eve (1915)
Context: p>Grant us the single heart once more
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King. Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer;
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.</p
The Impossible Five (2015)