George Eliot

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

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.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

The advantage of doing one’s praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to prepare for the long haul, the rise and fall, and let neither define your sense of self.

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

Mysteries are due to secrecy.

Patience – the gift of being able to see past the emotion.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.