George Eliot

A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

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

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they’re a mighty ornery lot. It’s the way they’re raised.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby-so helpless and so ridiculous.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

People sleep, and when they die they wake.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.