George Eliot

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: -in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.

A great man is always willing to be little.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can show…let me do it now.- William Penn

If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

It is hard to go beyond your public. If they are satisfied with cheap performance, you will not easily arrive at better. If they know what is good, and require it. you will aspire and burn until you achieve it. But from time to time, in history, men are born a whole age too soon.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

A man is a god in ruins.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.