George Eliot

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

But the mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

The reward of one’s duty is the power to fulfill another.

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

The eye is the jewel of the body.

Leave the rest to the gods.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

What is once well done is done forever.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

Real love begins when nothing is expected in return.

Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.