George Eliot

We must not inquire too curiously into motives… They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

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.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

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

If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

God’s first creature, which was light.

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone… I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.