George Eliot

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

Upon awakening, let the words Thank You flow from your lips, for this will remind you to begin your day with gratitude and compassion.

We estimate the wisdom of nations by seeing what they did with their surplus capital.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.

I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.

It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Dharma is what the Buddha taught. It is the way of understanding and love-how to understand, how to love, how to make understanding and love into real things.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.