George Eliot

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.

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.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio.

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 only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

As you get older, you realize that no one has all the answers. It turns out that life is an exercise in living with the certainty of uncertainty. – Jason Kilar

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct – nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.