George Eliot

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief -a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice…

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.

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.

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

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

All colors will agree in the dark.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

If thou wouldn’t conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.

The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.