Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Interpretation
As women age and gain experience, they become more resilient and less susceptible to control by societal expectations.
This quote highlights the idea that while younger women may still be molded or influenced by external pressures and challenges, older women possess a strength and independence that makes them resistant to such control. It reflects the journey of growth, self-discovery, and the complexities of womanhood, suggesting that wisdom and age lead to a fierce autonomy that cannot easily be swayed.
In practice
This quote can be used in a women's empowerment workshop to inspire confidence in older women.
But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, "suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?" "You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.
. . . the fellow's got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God's a secretion of the liver--all right once in a way, but there's no need to keep on about it. There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited.
You're thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched.
None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.
What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.
[O]ne can scarcely be frightened off writing what one wants to write for fear an obscure reviewer should patronise one on that account.
Soon madness has worn you down. Itβs easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says youβre worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.
Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.
We think we have to become something else to be satisfied, not realizing that being ourselves is the only thing that can satisfy us.
Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: 'The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me and I in Him.'
You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'
Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.
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