George Eliot

I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ’em to match the men.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.

Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it.

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

The future is purchased by the present.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.