compiled by Maggie
“Better to be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls running about to find husbands…Leave these things to time; make this home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your own, if they are offered you, and contented here if they are not.”
-”Marmee” in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
“Some pray to marry the man they love,
My prayer will somewhat vary:
I humbly pray to Heaven above
That I may love the man I marry.”
-Rose Pastor Stokes
“Little girls begin very early sometimes to dream about that far-away land of Romance. The teasing questions older people ask them often set them to thinking seriously of it. They call their little playmates their sweethearts, and imagine the admiration and fondness they have for them is the love that is written in the stars. Nobody explains to them that they will outgrow their early ideals as they do their dresses…
“I can remember how my ideals used to change. When I was a little girl…I thought my Prince Charming would be like the one in the story of Sleeping Beauty. I dreamed of sitting all day beside him on a crystal throne, with a crown on my head, and a scepter in my hand. But as I grew older, I realized how stupid that would be, and I fashioned him after the figures that flitted across my mirror in the world of books. He was as handsome as a Greek god, and the feats he performed could only have been possible in the days of the Round Table. Then I outgrew that ideal. Others took its place, but when a woman grown, I held up the one that was the best my woman’s heart could fashion. I found that my prince measured just to the stature of an honest man, simple and earnest and true. That was all—no Greek god, no dashing knight, but a strong, manly man whose love was my life’s crown of happiness.”
-”Mrs. Walton” in The Little Colonel At Boarding School by Annie Fellows Johnston
“It takes a mighty good man to be better than none.”
-A Quaker spinster
“Advice for a teenage daughter—five inexpensive beauty hints: For attractive lips, speak words of kindness; for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people; for a slim figure, share your food with the hungry; for beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it daily; and, for poise, walk with the knowledge that you will never walk alone.”
-Sam Levenson in The All-American Quote Book by Bob Phillips
originally printed in the Fall 1999 YLCF Journal
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