George Eliot

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.

I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better been left to the men.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.

It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness – calling their denial knowledge.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

If you shoot at a king you must kill him.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to carry it off.

When one wanted one’s interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people’s tricks.

The hottest love has the coldest end.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

If you believe in fate, believe in it, at least, for your good.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.