George Eliot

One gets a bad habit of being unhappy.

She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of passion, — when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal declaration has been made, and all is mutual …

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings …

If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.

If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out.

It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a "public."

High achievements demand some other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes.

There was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow.

Ugly and deformed people have great need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely uncomfortable without them.

If a man means to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the command of a distant horizon.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it...

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than leave it him in your will.

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice . . .

Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

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

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

Our life is determined for us — and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing and only think of bearing what is laid upon us and doing what is given us to do.

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love...

Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.