George Eliot

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found myself, myself as well.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

It always seems impossible until its done.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

Always play like an underdog.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Love is only one of many passions.

Children are all foreigners.

It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk.