George Eliot

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.

In the schoolroom her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while… you don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.