George Eliot

It’s them as take advantage that get advantage I this world.

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.

Who has not felt the beauty of a woman’s arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied gently-lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Out of love and hatred, out of earnings and borrowings and leadings and losses; out of sickness and pain; out of wooing and worshipping; out of traveling and voting and watching and caring; out of disgrace and contempt, comes our tuition in the serene and beautiful laws.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.

For knowledge itself is power.

A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.