George Eliot

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lift human life above the level of farce and give it some of the grace of tragedy.

If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes you don’t know who the patsy is, then you’re the patsy.

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.