George Eliot

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen’s miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

Men’s men: gentle or simple, they’re much of a muchness.

Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change –only to give stability to one beautiful moment.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.

Don’t do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

That after an hour’s silence he can say, The one thing I cannot stand is dampness… That’s all, it took him an hour to work that out.

Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren.

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.