George Eliot

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

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.

A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman’s life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul’s highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills.

A word once uttered can never be recalled.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

People ignore the thing they have the most power over. I know so many people who will go to a protest and do something big on an issue. But they won’t deal with that issue in their home.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

The eye is easily frightened.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

To think is to practice brain chemistry.

If a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. If he says perhaps he means no. And if he says no, he’s the hell of a diplomat.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.