George Eliot

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

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

For character too is a process and an unfolding… among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

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.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!

Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow. [Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.Lat.]

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

Syllables govern the world.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.