George Eliot

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

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.

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

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

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

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

I see the whole concept of Generation X implies that everyone has lost hope.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person’s stature is as large as one’s own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.