George Eliot

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer –committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

I’ll tell you why yes, because why people lie is, because when people stop lying you know they’ve stopped caring.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

A good conscience is a continual feast.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

If people misunderstand you, do not worry…it is your voice that they hear, but what goes through their mind is…their own thoughts.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.