Mother

This delightful and entertaining collection includes scores of quotations, sayings, and speculations about motherhood — from the Roman poet Virgil and St. Augustine to movie-maker Mack Sennett and comedienne Phyllis Diller. Shakespeare is quoted, as are Euripides, Thomas Alva Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, Napoleon, Edna Ferber, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Gloria Vanderbilt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many other writers, statesmen, celebrities, biblical figures, movie stars, and others.

There's solid advice from Abigail Van Buren ("If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money."), profound utterings by President Theodore Roosevelt ("Into a woman's keep is committed the destiny of the generations to come."), as well as tongue-in-cheek comments from American humorist Will Rogers ("I doubt if a charging elephant or rhino is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother.")

A wonderful little time for browsing, this book will also serve as a handy reference.