Gilded Age Quotes

“Leo sighed and went back to her work, but by the time she reached her little apartment on the houseboat moored to Gezira Island she was weary and on edge. She could not get the thought of Alix caught up in a battle out of her head. Sasha’s informant had described how she had been honoured by Tito for her role as a bombasi, hurling grenades into enemy bunkers. It wasn’t hard to imagine how dangerous that would be. She longed to confide in someone, to share her anxiety, but there was no one she could tell without divulging her source. She considered trying to get a phone call through to Sasha in London but dismissed the idea. It was unfair to burden him with the same worry when he was as helpless as she was. Apart from that, she was not sure how he would react. He hated the idea of women anywhere near the front line, as she knew from her own experience. In addition, Alix was fighting on the wrong side as far as he was concerned.”
― Holly Green, A Call to Home

“From then on, my sense of smell swelled beyond reason. Mostly ordinary odors, but sometimes I imagine I can smell the stink of a lie. Or the perfume of a pure heart. Or the heartbreaking smell of what could have been.”
― Rebecca Rosenberg, Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot

“Wars are senseless and cruel, fought for our power hungry emperor, not for the people.”
― Rebecca Rosenberg, Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot

“Heard straight from Napoleon’s mouth himself,” I say. “Champagne! In victory we deserve it, and in defeat we need it.”
― Rebecca Rosenberg, Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot

“America's industrial success produced a roll call of financial magnificence: Rockefellers, Morgans, Astors, Mellons, Fricks, Carnegies, Goulds, du Ponts, Belmonts, Harrimans, Huntingtons, Vanderbilts, and many more based in dynastic wealth of essentially inexhaustible proportions. John D. Rockefeller made $1 billion a year, measured in today's money, and paid no income tax. No one did, for income tax did not yet exist in America. Congress tried to introduce an income tax of 2 percent on earnings of $4,000 in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Income tax wouldn't become a regular part of American Life until 1914. People would never be this rich again.
Spending all this wealth became for many a more or less full-time occupation. A kind of desperate, vulgar edge became attached to almost everything they did. At one New York dinner party, guests found the table heaped with sand and at each place a little gold spade; upon a signal, they were invited to dig in and search for diamonds and other costly glitter buried within. At another party - possibly the most preposterous ever staged - several dozen horses with padded hooves were led into the ballroom of Sherry's, a vast and esteemed eating establishment, and tethered around the tables so that the guests, dressed as cowboys and cowgirls, could enjoy the novel and sublimely pointless pleasure of dining in a New York ballroom on horseback.”
― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“I’m a man of words, yet you rob me of them every single time.”
― Joanna Shupe, Mogul

“This was, after all, New Orleans in 1890- the Crescent City of the Gilded Age, where aliases of convenience and unconventional living arrangements were anything but out of the ordinary, at least in certain parts of town. Identities were fluid here, and names and appearances weren't always the best guide to telling who was who.”
― Gary Krist, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

“I used to go to church. I even went through a rather intense religious period when I was sixteen. But the idea of an everlasting life -- a never-ending banquet, as a stupid visiting minister to our church once appallingly described it -- filled me with a greater terror than the concept of extinction...”
― Louis Auchincloss, East Side Story

“It was the age of confidence. Arrogance was epidemic.”
― David Laskin, The Children's Blizzard

“Love was like a stock, Lizzie realized. You gambled on its paying off in the long run—but it could just as easily cost you everything.”
― Joanna Shupe, Magnate

“This isn't London, sweetheart. This is New York City and we can spot a fraud from a mile away.”
― Joanna Shupe, A Daring Arrangement

“A European visitor in the 1880s remarked that the only sense not offended by American cooking was hearing.”
― Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896

“Not the least of the hardships to which the dying are subject is the visitation of their loved ones. The poor darlings, God bless them, may feel every impulse to condole and console, but their primary sensation is nonetheless one of embarrassment in the presence of the unspeakable and a guilty gratitude that it is not yet their fate.”
― Louis Auchincloss, East Side Story

“But Pierre had been born with a shrewdness that made him early aware that a failure to believe that human events were ordered by a higher power was regarded by many in the highest positions as obnoxious and even sinful, and as nothing was to be gained by exciting such hostility, it was better to give a silent or even smiling assent to the fatuous idealism to which, particularly in youth, one was so relentlessly exposed.”
― Louis Auchincloss, East Side Story

“At least in the Gilded Age age they gilded shit.”
― Josh Bazell

“And English society was was not exactly welcoming to these rich newcomers: Imagine Kim Kardashian marrying Prince Henry today and you get the general idea of the suspicion and disdain that the Americans encountered.”
― Daisy Goodwin, The American Heiress

“This summer can be the adventure of a lifetime, if you let it.”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“Soon she would live on one of those magnificent Thousand Islands for the entire summer.” —Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“She would be free like the gulls that sailed the summer breeze.”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“A whole new world is waiting for us across this river.”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“It was Katelyn’s first time in a skiff, her first time on the river, her first time going to an island. It was the first of many firsts, and her excitement grew with each minute that passed.”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“A whole summer on this beautiful Pullman Island! What magic might transpire?”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“Let me welcome you to Pullman Island, home of the famous George M. Pullman of the Pullman railroad car fame!”—Katelyn’s Choice by Susan G Mathis”
― Susan G. Mathis, Katelyn's Choice

“A hand moved gracefully over the canvas, releasing the first colorful dot onto a sea of white. Her mind traveled to a different realm, and she joined in spirit with every human being whomever dared to take that first stroke, and she
knew the risks; she was willing to pay the price, because wasn’t that what the heart longed for? Whether it be by writing, painting, or music—one only needs to find the strength of courage to walk along the creative path, to search for one’s higher self, and maybe, for just a moment, to gaze into the eyes of God."

― AnneMarie Dapp, Autumn Lady”
― AnneMarie Dapp

“Gowen finally gave up on December 13, 1889. He secluded himself in a Washington hotel room, pulled out a gun and, in morbid imitation of his old enemies, killed a mine official—himself.”
― Mark Bulik, The Sons of Molly Maguire: The Irish Roots of America's First Labor War

“You have a very fine set of horses, Mr. Addleshaw, although the one with the black star on his nose does tend to shy a little when other carriages approach."

"When other carriages approach, or when you're driving on the wrong side of the street?" he countered.”
― Jen Turano, After a Fashion

“The etchings are remarkable. As the Pierpont Morgan Library will be if I am placed in the position of librarian. (25)”
― The Personal Historian

“We’ll receive everyone in the parlor, but only after I have Gibbons leave them lingering about in the receiving room for a good ten minutes or so.” - A Match in the Making by Jen Turano”
― Jen Turano, A Match in the Making

“I’m twenty-three years old and have been out in society for five Seasons, both winter and summer. It would be next to impossible to convince anyone I’m anything other than peculiar." To Spark A Match by Jen Turano 2023”
― Jen Turano, To Spark a Match

“Person 1: Do you know how America's class system works?
Person 2: America has a class system?
Person 1: Yes, that's how it works.”
― Ingrid Robeyns, Limitarianism The Case Against Extreme Wealth, The Psychology of Management & Get Sh*t Done 3 Books Collection Set