George Eliot

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

Each thought is a nail that is driven In structures that cannot decay; And the mansion at last will be given To us as we build it each day.

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

Whatever advice you give, be short.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

What is it they want from a man that they didn’t get from his work? What do they expect? What is there left of him when he’s done his work? What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What’s left of the man when the work’s done but a shambles of apology.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Kings are not born they are made by universal hallucination.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.