George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the dear deceit of beauty.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

I always feel excited when I can do something that’s about what I believe in.

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

Fierce eagles do not produce timorous doves.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods. In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

To think is to practice brain chemistry.