George Eliot

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities – a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces –a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer –committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions.What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

Where charity keeps pace with grain, industry is blessed, but to slave to get, and keep it sordidly, is a sin against Providence, a vice in government and an injury to their neighbours.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.