George Eliot

We ust find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot - Romola
Our deeds are like children that are born to us;they live and act apart from our own will.

What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?

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

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot - Scenes of Clerical Life - Amos Barton
Every man who is not a monster, mathematician or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
George Eliot - Middlemarch, Ch 8
But pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
Some people did what their neighbors did so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
George Eliot - 1819-1880
It is never too late to become what we might have been.

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech-one does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.
George Eliot - The Mill On The Floss, Ch 9
Childhood has no forebodings, but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Wear a smile and have friends,
wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss, 1860
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.
George Eliot - "Middlemarch", Book I, ch.1
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
George Eliot - a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans
Excessive literary production is a social offense.

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.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more that they can choose their birthplace, or their father or mother.
George Eliot - Silas Marner (1861)
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot - internet
No evil dooms us hopelessly, except the evil we love, and desire to continue in and make no effort to escape from.
George Eliot - Romola, 1863
Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
George Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, 1866
The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

- George Eliot