The American Frugal Housewife Quotes

“Do not make children cross-eyed, by having hair hang about their foreheads, where they see it continually.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy

“Nations do not plunge at once into ruin - governments do not change suddenly - the causes which bring about the final blow, are scarcely perceptible in the beginning; but they increase in numbers, and in power; they press harder and harder upon the energies and virtue of a people; and the last steps only are alarmingly hurried and irregular. A republic without industry, economy, and integrity, is Samson shorn of his locks. A luxurious and idle republic! Look at the phrase! - The words were never made to be married together; every body sees it would be death to one of them.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy

“A mind full of piety and knowledge is always rich; it is a bank that never fails; it yields a perpetual dividend of happiness. In”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“The good old home habits of our ancestors are breaking up—it will be well if our virtue and our freedom do not follow them!”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Young ladies should be taught that usefulness is happiness, and that all other things are but incidental.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“In early childhood, you lay the foundation of poverty or riches, in the habits you give your children. Teach them to save everything,—not for their own use, for that would make them selfish—but for some use. Teach them to share everything with their playmates; but never allow them to destroy anything.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“We never shall be prosperous till we make pride and vanity yield to the dictates of honesty and prudence!”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Economy, like grammar, is a very hard and tiresome study, after we are twenty years old.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy

“Beer is a good family drink.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy

“The fact is, our girls have no home education.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“One great cause of the vanity, extravagance and idleness that are so fast growing upon our young ladies, is the absence of domestic education.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“That a mother should wish to see her daughters happily married, is natural and proper; that a young lady should be pleased with polite attentions is likewise natural and innocent; but this undue anxiety, this foolish excitement about showing off the attentions of somebody, no matter whom, is attended with consequences seriously injurious. It promotes envy and rivalship; it leads our young girls to spend their time between the public streets, the ball room, and the toilet; and, worst of all, it leads them to contract engagements, without any knowledge of their own hearts, merely for the sake of being married as soon as their companions. When married, they find themselves ignorant of the important duties of domestic life; and its quiet pleasures soon grow tiresome to minds worn out by frivolous excitements. If they remain unmarried, their disappointment and discontent are, of course, in proportion to their exaggerated idea of the eclat attendant upon having a lover. The evil increases in a startling ratio; for these girls, so injudiciously educated, will, nine times out of ten, make injudicious mothers, aunts, and friends;”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Steam-baths are excellent for severe colds, and for some disorders in the bowels.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Plantain leaves laid upon a wound are cooling and healing. Half”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Flour boiled thoroughly in milk, so as to make quite a thick porridge, is good in cases of dysentery.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“GENERAL MAXIMS FOR HEALTH. Rise early. Eat simple food. Take plenty of exercise. Never fear a little fatigue. Let not children be dressed in tight clothes; it is necessary their limbs and muscles should have full play, if you wish for either health or beauty. Avoid the necessity of a physician, if you can, by careful attention to your diet. Eat what best agrees with your system, and resolutely abstain from what hurts you, however well you may like it. A few days' abstinence, and cold water for a beverage, has driven off many an approaching disease. If you find yourself really ill, send for a good physician. Have nothing to do with quacks;”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“In this country, we are apt to let children romp away their existence, till they get to be thirteen or fourteen. This is not well. It is not well for the purses and patience of parents; and it has a still worse effect on the morals and habits of the children. Begin early is the great maxim for everything in education. A child of six years old can be made useful; and should be taught to consider every day lost in which some little thing has not been done to assist others.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Those who make candles will find it a great improvement to steep the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and dry them. The flame is clearer, and the tallow will not 'run.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“Varnishing Gilded Frames, 117”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife

“If young men and young women are brought up to consider frugality contemptible, and industry degrading, it is vain to expect they will at once become prudent and useful, when the cares of life press heavily upon them.”
― Lydia Maria Francis Child, American Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who are Not Ashamed of Economy