George Eliot

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

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.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one’s self-approval.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?