George Eliot

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.

Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy.

I always forgive others. The anger; sadness; frustration; pain, whatever feelings I felt, no matter the hurt; the tears, I always found understanding and reason to forgive them; to not hold onto it; to not resent them. But there is one, who I never seem to be able to give absolution, and that’s myself.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises.

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.