By some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed.

The anger of slow, mild, loving people has a lasting quality that mere bad-tempered folk cannot understand.

... perhaps there is no conceit so arrogant as the conceit which follows a conviction of emancipation.

There isn't any virtue where there has never been any temptation.

To talk over a quarrel, with its inevitable accompaniment of self-justification, is too much like handling cobwebs to be very successful.

What I object to in Mother is that she wants me to think her thoughts. Apart from the question of hypocrisy, I prefer my own.

there are few things that are more endearing than the grace of listening with attention; indeed, it is more than endearing, it is impressive - for no one knows what wisdom lies concealed in silence!