Go forward with joyful confidence.
George EliotRead
There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the pain of having one's beliefs misrepresented or mocked by insincere individuals.
George Eliot highlights the profound distress that arises when deeply held convictions are distorted by those who do not genuinely understand or respect them. The quote suggests that such misrepresentation not only strips away the authenticity of one's beliefs but also leaves a sense of betrayal by those who might exploit them for personal gain.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of staying true to oneself, this quote perfectly encapsulates the idea of integrity.
Go forward with joyful confidence.
You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well.
She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel β that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.
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.
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.
Being of color in America by no means amounts to a constant barrage of negativity. However, unlike being white, being of color means one's race is a constant issue.
We know only that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.
We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.
It will always be the same possibilities, in sum or on the average, that go on repeating themselves until a man comes along who does not value the actuality above idea. It is he who first gives the new possibilities their meaning, their direction, and he awakens them.
In the long term the most important question for a company is not what you are but what you are becoming.
Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks--it says, Goodbye.
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