George Eliot

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.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change –only to give stability to one beautiful moment.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.

The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.