George Eliot

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

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…

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – Let there be truth between us two forevermore.

My love for you was like a poem I wrote; one that I disregarded as average. Torn out, thrown away to the rubbish heap, waiting; wishing to be picked up and appreciated by someone else, for the masterpiece that it is.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

Have good trust in yourself … not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

She was taken by surprise at quite how breathtaking the twinkle in her eyes was. She listened and watched attentively, magnetized. As butterflies danced on her lips, her own stomach felt butterflies.

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.