Elizabeth Bibesco Quotes

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

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

We learn nothing by being right.

Happiness is the moment when you cease to make an inventory of joys; it is a glow, a brightness - never a list.

To others we are not ourselves but a performer in their lives cast for a part we do not even know that we are playing.

Seeing through is rarely seeing into.

To some people the impossible is impossible.

It is never good dwelling on good-byes ... it is not the being together that it prolongs, it is the parting.

Endurance is frequently a form of indecision.

It is sometimes the man who opens the door who is the last to enter the room.

Talk about the joys of the unexpected, can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be?

Temptations make one very censorious. If you are virtuous you condemn the wicked and if you are wicked, you condemn the virtuous.

Irony is the hygiene of the mind.

You don't have to signal a social conscience by looking like a frump. Lace knickers won't hasten the holocaust, you can ban the bomb in a feather boa just as well as without, and a mild interest in the length of hemlines doesn't necessarily disqualify you from reading Das Kapital and agreeing with every word.

The Ten Commandments don't tell you what you ought to do: They only put ideas into your head.

Of what help is anyone who can only be approached with the right words?

My soul has gained the freedom of the night

Reticences are as revealing as avowals.

Perfect moments don't turn into half-hours.

Are there any punishments in life but our joys turned against us?

Friendship is a difficult, dangerous job. It is also (though we rarely admit it) extremely exhausting.

It is harder to cut our gains than to cut our losses.

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

Influencing people is dangerous. Their acts and thoughts become your illegitimate children. You can't get away from them and Heaven knows what they mayn't grow up into.

We often call a certainty a hope, to bring it luck.