'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

- George Eliot

A maggot must be born i' the rotten cheese to like it.

- George Eliot

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.

- George Eliot

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

- George Eliot

to my thinking, it is more pitiable to bore than to be bored.

- George Eliot

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

- George Eliot

No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.

- George Eliot

What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity.

- George Eliot

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

- George Eliot