George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

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.

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.

Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

This gives force to the strong — that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

Do Good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.