George Eliot

Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

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.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub ‘Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you’. She says, ‘Toughen up, this is reality we are living in’.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.