George Eliot

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they’re gone.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief -a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.

We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose – some for cash and some for political influence. We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?

You. too, can determine what you want. You can decide on your major objectives, targets, aims, and destination.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

I always forgive others. The anger; sadness; frustration; pain, whatever feelings I felt, no matter the hurt; the tears, I always found understanding and reason to forgive them; to not hold onto it; to not resent them. But there is one, who I never seem to be able to give absolution, and that’s myself.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

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

The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.