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[Letter to William Ward, 11 July 1878]Dear Boy, Why don’t you write to me? I don’t know what has become of you.As for me I am ruined. The law suit is ...more

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If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

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The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

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There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

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The curves of your lips rewrite history.

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He is fairer than the morning star, and whiter than the moon. For his body I would give my soul, and for his love I would surrender heaven.

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A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

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Society exists only as a mental concept in the real world there are only individuals.

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Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows ...more

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Romantic literature is in effect imaginative lying.

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We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

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The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

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Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last...more

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I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.

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When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.