George Eliot

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.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities – a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces –a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.

I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better been left to the men.

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

The less government we have the better.

The gap that’s opened I’m filling with fairy dust, hues of the heart and a joy for life what was… I invite to exit right quietly, in shades of black and white.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Dare to think for yourself.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential – there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.