George Eliot

Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it.

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical 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.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.

For who is pleased with himself.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

It’s your life-but only if you make it so.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.