George Eliot

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ’em to match the men.

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

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 receipt.

Consequences are unpitying.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity does best discover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue.

Surrender is faith that the power of love can accomplish anything… even when you can not foresee the outcome.

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

New arts destroy the old.

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

Wake up, you’ve been sleeping. Take up your bed and walk. Stop blaming other people. Oh, it’s nobody else’s fault.

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.