George Eliot

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.

A woman is a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

Be an opener of doors.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Every being is in search of truth, but small fears go on preventing you.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon