George Eliot

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Each thought is a nail that is driven In structures that cannot decay; And the mansion at last will be given To us as we build it each day.

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

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

Be better. Be better at everything. Be better fathers… Men can be better husbands, which is – be a part of your family’s life. Do the dishes. Don’t babysit your children. You don’t babysit your own children. Be engaged. Don’t just think going to work and coming home makes you a man. Being a father, being engaged, all that stuff is important. Be a better employer. When you are sitting at a seat of power at a table of any kind and you look around you just see you, it’s just you and a bunch of men around a table, on a golf course, making deals, and you allow that to happen, and you’re okay with that – be better.

The time has come to shed this skin. Its cloying inconvenience doesn’t fit me anymore. My new attire strikes color, shine, shadow, makes noise, and may put your teeth on edge. Tough sh–. Get used to it. I’m inviting you to step into your fear and dance with life.

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

People sleep, and when they die they wake.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

No question is so difficult to answer as that which the answer is obvious.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

For too long I have silenced my heart, that now, when I give it the opportunity to speak, it no longer remembers its voice. Locked away, it forgot what it’s like to be free; to roam. Imprisoned within loneliness, I fear Stockholm syndrome has developed.

I teach that all men are mad.