It is a woman, and only a woman, — a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her, — who can turn a house into a home.

Men give us most rarely that which we really want, not favor, but - Justice. Nothing is easier than to coax them to pet us like children, nothing more difficult than to persuade them to treat us like responsible human beings.

The nest may be constructed, so far as the sticks go, by the male bird; but only the hen can line it with moss and down!

I think it is worse to be poor in mind than in purse, to be stunted and belittled in soul, made a coward, made a liar, made mean and slavish, accustomed to fawn and prevaricate, and "manage" by base arts a husband or a father,--I think this is worse than to be kicked with hobnailed shoes.

So immense are the claims on a mother, physical claims on her bodily and brain vigor, and moral claims on her heart and thoughts, that she cannot ... meet them all and find any large margin beyond for other cares and work. She serves the community in the very best and highest way it is possible to do, by giving birth to healthy children, whose physical strength has not been defrauded, and to whose moral and mental nature she can give the whole of her thoughts.

Ours is the old, old story of every uprising race or class or order. The work of elevation must be wrought by ourselves or not at all.

If a woman be herself pure and noble-hearted, she will come into every circle as a person does into a heated room, who carries with him the freshness of the woods where he has been walking.