George Eliot

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

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

But the mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer –committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes.

When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions…

When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

Which is worse? The wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, — for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, — for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.

We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.