George Eliot

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better been left to the men.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

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.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Pity is for living, envy is for dead.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

America is another name for opportunity.

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Find people who will make you better.

It’s them as take advantage that get advantage I this world.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Rest in reason; move in passion.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

We all have our challenges, issues, things that we’re working through and insecurity is there because nobody is perfect no matter who you are. It’s that imperfection that makes you so dope.

Those who trust us educate us.