George Eliot

But the mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

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.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

We are wiser than we know.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

When a man is just and firm in his purpose, the citizens burning to approve a wrong or the frowning looks of a tyrant. Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind. Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic, nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove: Should the heavens crack and tumble down, as the ruins crushed him he would not fear.

Remember who you are.

Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.

What I mean is you make the world less ugly just by living in it.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.