"Either you have a rival or you don't. If you have one, you must please in order to be preferred to him, and if you don't you must still please-in order to avoid having one."

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If fathers are sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own loves over again.

— William Makepeace Thackeray