George Eliot

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

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

Ahh, that mountain of self-discovery. Every time you have reached the summit, the clouds clear and you see there is still a ways to go. Don’t look up with thoughts of despair; thinking how much further do I have to go?! Take a moment and look back to see how far you have come. Don’t lose sight of your accomplishments, and focus on the continued commitment to self-discovery and development.

I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.

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.

Anger is a brief lunacy.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

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

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it… Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.

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.

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.