…she never had what she wanted till she had given up hoping for,' said Mrs. Meg. - Louisa May Alcott

"That boy is a perfect cyclops, isn't he?" said Amy one day, as Laurie clattered by on horseback, with a flourish of his whip as he passed.

Amy's lecture did Laurie good, though, of course, he did not own it till long afterward; men seldom do, — 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.

Dear me! If only men and women would trust, understand and help as my children do, what a capital place `the world would be!