George Eliot

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.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

Blows are sarcasm’s turned stupid.

It is seldom that the miserable of the world can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Consequences are unpitying.

To delay justice, is injustice.

The more you know, the less you need.

The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.