Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

It is indeed in many ways more comfortable to belong to that section of society whose action are not publicly canvassed and discussed

Who has told you that the fruit belies the flower? For the fruit you have not tasted, and the flower you know but by report.

In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.

No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure

There are as many sorts of women as there are women.

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.