George Eliot

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Have wholesome, but not costly Food, and be rather cleanly than dainty in ordering it.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

One gains universal applause who mingles the useful with the agreeable, at once delighting and instructing the reader.

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.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

Be better. Be better at everything. Be better fathers… Men can be better husbands, which is – be a part of your family’s life. Do the dishes. Don’t babysit your children. You don’t babysit your own children. Be engaged. Don’t just think going to work and coming home makes you a man. Being a father, being engaged, all that stuff is important. Be a better employer. When you are sitting at a seat of power at a table of any kind and you look around you just see you, it’s just you and a bunch of men around a table, on a golf course, making deals, and you allow that to happen, and you’re okay with that – be better.