George Eliot

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage – the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio.

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

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

Revolutions go not backward.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

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.

Fierce eagles do not produce timorous doves.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

Genius Borrows nobly.

You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.