At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will. At thirty, they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact.
Louisa May Alcott. . . for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.
Louisa May Alcott