George Eliot

We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.

Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.

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

But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.

Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.

It’s rather a strong check to one’s self-complacency to find how much of one’s right doing depends on not being in want of money.

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.

What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor!

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.

Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.

The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.

It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.

Blameless people are always the most exasperating.

We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.

We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.