George Eliot

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

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

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.

The reward of one’s duty is the power to fulfill another.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

Sad people dislike the happy, and the happy the sad; the quick thinking the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.

Do you know that the tendrils of graft and corruption have become mighty interlacing roots so that even men who would like to be honest are tripped and trapped by them?

I am the flame, electric blue, lightening, razor-like, renewing my spirit. Heart beating in time to the earth’s rhythm and expanse of black ink sky, overreaching eternal. My fingertips spark with seeds of creation, fireworks coloring canvas, beckoned by this light that lifts me.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists – talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.