George Eliot

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

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.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

We must not inquire too curiously into motives… They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

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

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.

When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.

Earth laughs in flowers.

A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.