George Eliot

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

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

It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, Know thyself, and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident.

Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.

And now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it. Already choking on my pride, so there’s no use crying about it.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them-we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

To be fully seen by somebody, then and be loved anyhow – this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.

Give the love that you pray for; someone’s been praying to have it.

I’m fading away, you know I used to be on fire.

You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, now there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.

I miss the thought of a forever, you and me. But all you’re missing is my body.

It doesn’t matter if you have a valentine or not – just love yourself and be your own.

O ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round!

There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.