George Eliot

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.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

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.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

My reputation grows with every failure.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life … would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.

All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.

But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the wayside as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says.

I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?