"The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional."

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Man is potentially a son, and woman is potentially a mother; woman depends on the dependence of man. The spinster, if pathetic at all, is pathetic because she has no one to look after, not because there is no one to look after her. Bear in mind that the conventional spinster keeps a canaary as a substitute for a husband.

— Stella Benson