George Eliot

Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage – the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

There is a crack in everything God has made.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.

There is a wisdom of the head, and there is a wisdom of the heart.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

Today, you can decide to walk in freedom. You can choose to walk differently. You can walk as a free person, enjoying every step.

Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

Man has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights…sexual intercourse!…His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby-so helpless and so ridiculous.

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.