Quotes from Merle Shain

Some men are more perfect than others.

You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.

Men who take advantage of one woman take advantage of them all.

There are no perfect men of course, but some are more perfect than others, and we can use all of those we can get.

But who would rush at a benighted man, and give him two black eyes for being blind?

One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you, and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.

The answer doesn't lie in learning how to protect ourselves from life-it lies in learning how to become strong enough to let a bit more of it in.

Life is like fording a river, stepping from one slippery stone to another, and you must rejoice every time you don't lose your balance, and learn to laugh at all the times you do.

One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment.

Our strength is in our dreams, and those who do not dare to dream damn themselves.

No marriage is one person's failure any more than it's one person's success, so it works best to see a marriage that has ended simply as something that didn't work out.

The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving.

The older I get, the clearer it becomes to me that no one is cheated in this world, unless it's by himself.

There are some decisions in life that only you can make.

Loving can cost a lot but not loving always cost more.

Love is short, forgetting is long, and understanding longer still.

It takes a lot of mulch, love does, to create a froth.

The best kind of men have a certainty in themselves that isn't done in when countered by a certainty in their women, and they are much adored.

Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.

You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.

Cynicism is a form of cowardice, a failure of courage to hope.

Friends are like windows through which you see out into the world and back into yourself. If you don't have friends you see much less than you otherwise might.

Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.

The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving.