George Eliot

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg…

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people but if we tried to shut up the insane we would run out of building materials.

We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!

As soon as there is life there is danger.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I don’t do quagmires.

You can tell a lot about a person by listening to the way they talk about someone they once loved.

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.

How you gonna win if you ain’t right within?