George Eliot

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness – calling their denial knowledge.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Blows are sarcasm’s turned stupid.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

When you place yourself in a position to help another, you will discover your greater capabilities.