George Eliot

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people but if we tried to shut up the insane we would run out of building materials.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. He is the world’s eye.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one’s clothes.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.

What we become depends on what our fathers teach us.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?

Be not simply good – be good for something.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.