George Eliot

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

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 kind. 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.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

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

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

Esther liked books out where everyone could see them, a sort of graphic index to the intricate labyrinth of her mind arrayed to impress the most casual guest, a system of immediate introduction which she had found to obtain in a number of grimy intellectual households in Greenwich Village.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.