“But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent.”

“What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?”

“A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarreling without any sense of alienation.”

“Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman--something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better.”

“You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I will never have another.”

“Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humouring everybody's nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humour?' said Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and looking rather absently at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in exquisite writing. 'The shortest way is to make your value felt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not.''With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellow pull you. ...”

“A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.”