George Eliot

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

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.

We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

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

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.