George Eliot

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: -in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

The connection between us runs so strong and deep. It’s like a steel cable stretching across the ocean bed, so many fathoms below, that even the most skilled and courageous of deep sea divers cannot reach it to cut it. It remains strong, silent, invisible, invincible.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people but if we tried to shut up the insane we would run out of building materials.

No matter how hard the past is, we can always begin again.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

There is no such thing as the Queen’s English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

Be a lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

The less government we have the better.

We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

Every being is in search of truth, but small fears go on preventing you.

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it….

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.