POVERTY is only a relative affair, after all; it is X minus the things you want.

HEAVEN must be something like an afternoon tea, as far as the dearth of men is concerned.

FIGURES do lie; especially if they are the ones that express a woman"s age--or the time a man gets home at night.

A MAN"S favorite way of answering a woman"s accusations is to tell her how pretty she looks when she gets excited.

MATRIMONY is the price of love--divorce, the rebate.

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WHEN a millionaire"s heart is touched it makes a hollow sound.

THE woman who is wedded to an art and also to a man pays the full penalty for that kind of bigamy.

IN the love game n.o.body knows exactly what he wants; but a wise man tries to get what he thinks he wants and a wise woman tries to think she wants what she gets.

A MAN isn"t as curious as a woman--because usually a woman tells him everything before he has a chance to become curious.

THE only original thing about some men is original sin.

HOLD on tight to your temper "round the curves of matrimony.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

COLD water never cured a fever and a woman"s indifference never put out the divine fire of a man"s love.

LOVE is a sort of club sandwich affair, composed of large slices of selfishness, seasoned with pa.s.sion, spiced with jealousy and covered with thin layers of sentiment.

A MAN may admire a superior woman, but when it comes to marrying he prefers a goose who will cackle at his jokes to an owl who is likely to hoot at them.

A MAN always remembers a girl"s first kiss the longest--because usually that"s the only one he had any trouble in getting.

TO keep a man"s interest at high pressure deal yourself out to him in h.o.m.oeopathic doses; one only wants more of anything that one cannot get enough of.

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THOSE who have tried matrimony, like those who have finished with the morning paper, always say, "There"s nothing in it;" but somehow that never keeps the rest of us from wanting to see for ourselves.

WONDER if it never occurs to the woman who marries a man to reform him that the sort of person who is headstrong enough to have made a "past"

for himself isn"t likely to sit quietly by and let somebody else carve out his future for him.

IT is so much easier for some men to go to the devil for a woman than to go to work for her.

ALAS that the fever of love should so often be followed by a chill!

IN THE modern love affair woman proposes, G.o.d disposes and man--just dozes.

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A MAN doesn"t need to swear at a woman in order to express his opinion of her; he can shut the front door behind him in the morning so that it sounds just like a "d.a.m.n!"

BY a man"s vows of devotion ye shall not know him; the lover who promises a girl a life of roses is usually the one who allows her to pick off all the thorns for herself.

MAN is such a paradox that a woman is forced to make him believe that she doesn"t take him seriously--or she won"t get a chance to take him at all.

A MAN cannot keep his grouch and his friends at the same time.

THE woman who marries a dandy soon discovers that a thing of beauty is not necessarily a joy forever.

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A MAN never selects a wife with any judgment or reason, because by the time he has reached the marrying fever all judgment and reason have fled.

IT IS a wise fool who rushes in and a fool angel who fears to tread when it comes to love making; the woman who can"t be coaxed can always be captured.

IT MAY not be immoral for a girl to say "d.a.m.n," but it affects a man just as it would to hear a dove or a canary bird shrieking like a parrot.

A MAN in the act of putting his wife on the train for her summer vacation feels like the bad boy who has just heard the bell clang for recess; he doesn"t know exactly what he is going to do, but he knows it will be something against the rules and hence very fascinating.

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IT"S awfully hard for a girl, with her mind all made up and her thoughts at the altar, to sit silently by and wait for the love idea to penetrate the thick layers of resistance that cover the masculine brain.

AS long as Satan can make a woman believe that it is possible to reform a rake and make a roue over into a doting husband the ladies will keep his majesty"s business running.

IF anything could make a woman willing to exchange her curves for a little muscle it would be that maddening, "There, there, now!" att.i.tude with which the average man greets her righteous wrath.

MANY a man would be dumbfounded if he should discover that the ideal in his wife"s heart didn"t have a double chin, a bald spot and turned-in toes just like himself.

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THE music of the spheres isn"t loud enough to drown the din of some matrimonial squabbles.

A KNOWLEDGE of all the ologies and isms isn"t worth half as much to a girl in the game of life as a knowledge of how to use her eyes and how to keep her pompadour in curl.

WHEN a man discovers that a woman knows more than he does it strikes him dumb--but not with admiration.

HEART-TO-HEART talks between platonic friends are as apt to lead to lip-to-lip silences that Plato never dreamed of.

MAN may be the n.o.blest work of G.o.d--in the abstract; but in a bathing suit--well, it takes blind love to make a girl think he looks like that.

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A MAN"S surprise at the calmness with which his wife receives the announcement that he has failed in business is only equaled by his astonishment at her hysteria when a dress comes home that doesn"t fit.

A GIRL always keeps a tender spot in her heart for the man she has once loved; but to a man nothing is so cold as cooled affection.