The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

The only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from her - especially if that is what she desires.

This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward turn out to have been a crime - he never knows. And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable.

Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

It is love in old age, no longer blind, that is true love. For the love's highest intensity doesn't necessarily mean it's highest quality.

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink

Mothers see the angel in us because the angel is there. If it's shown to the mother, the son has got an angel to show, hasn't he? When a son cuts somebody's throat the mother only sees it's possible for a misguided angel to act like a devil - and she's entirely right about that!