George Eliot

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Men’s men: gentle or simple, they’re much of a muchness.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from those who have never left home.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.

I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.