George Eliot

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead.

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

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Branching streams cannot compare to the source.

We should come home from adventures and perils and discoveries with new experiences and character.

Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Real love begins when nothing is expected in return.

There is a great deal of human nature in people.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

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