George Eliot

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

Never learn to do anything. If you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

I was born upon thy bank, river, my blood flows in thy stream, and thou meanderest forever. At the bottom of my dream.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

The world is its own magic.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Have a care, therefore, where there is more sail than ballast.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.

The need for change bulldozed road down the center of my mind.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.