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All Writing Seems To Me Worse In The State Of Proof Than In Any Other Form. In Manuscript One's Own Wisdom Is Rather Remarkable To One, But In Proof It Has The Effect Of One's Private Furniture Repeated In The Shop Windows. And Then There Is The Sense That The Worst Errors Will Go To Press Unnoticed!

-George Eliot

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All Writing Seems To

George Eliot

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All Writing Seems To Me Worse In The State Of Proof Than In Any Other Form. In Manuscript One's Own Wisdom Is Rather Remarkable To One, But In Proof It Has The Effect Of One's Private Furniture Repeated In The Shop Windows. And Then There Is The Sense That The Worst Errors Will Go To Press Unnoticed!

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Death Was Not To Be A Leap: It Was To Be A Long Descent Under Thickening Shadows.

Character Is Not Cut In Marble - It Is Not Something Solid And Unalterable. It Is Something Living And Changing, And May Become Diseased As Our Bodies Do.

Art Is The Nearest Thing To Life; It Is A Mode Of Amplifying Experience And Extending Our Contact With Our Fellow Men Beyond The Bounds Of Our Personal Lot.

No Evil Dooms Us Hopelessly Except The Evil We Love, And Desire To Continue In, And Make No Effort To Escape From.

... When One's Outward Lot Is Perfect, The Sense Of Inward Imperfection Is The More Pressing.

May I Reach That Purest Heaven - Be To Other Souls The Cup Of Strength In Some Great Agony; Enkindle Generous Ardor, Feed Pure Love, Beget The Smiles That Have No Cruelty. Be The Sweet Presence Of A Good Diffused, And In The Diffusion Ever More Intense! So Shall I Join The Choir Invisible Whose Music Is The Gladness Of The World.

The Fact Is, Both Callers And Work Thicken - The Former Sadly Interfering With The Latter.

It Is A Common Sentence That Knowledge Is Power; But Who Hath Duly Considered Or Set Forth The Power Of Ignorance? Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down.

The Best Fire Doesna Flare Up The Soonest.

Anger Seek It Prey,-- Something To Tear With Sharp-edged Tooth And Claw, Like Not To Go Off Hungry, Leaving Love To Feast On Milk And Honeycomb At Will.

Is It Not Rather What We Expect In Men, That They Should Have Numerous Strands Of Experience Lying Side By Side And Never Compare Them With Each Other?

We Must Find Our Duties In What Comes To Us, Not In What Might Have Been.

The Bow Always Strung ... Will Not Do.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself, And To Foist Very Old Incidents Upon Us With Only A Slight Change Of Costume.

Perhaps The Most Delightful Friendships Are Those In Which There Is Much Agreement, Much Disputation, And Yet More Personal Liking.

The Human Heart Finds Nowhere Shelter But In Human Kind.

Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down.

What Should I Do—how Should I Act Now, This Very Day . . . What She Would Resolve To Do That Day Did Not Yet Seem Quite Clear, But Something That She Could Achieve Stirred Her As With An Approaching Murmur Which Would Soon Gather Distinctness.

Destiny Stands By Sarcastic With Our Dramatis Personae Folded In Her Hand.

Children Demand That Their Heroes Should Be Fleckless, And Easily Believe Them So .

Hostesses Who Entertain Much Must Make Up Their Parties As Ministers Make Up Their Cabinets, On Grounds Other Than Personal Liking.

Satan Was A Blunderer ... Who Made A Stupendous Failure. If He Had Succeeded, We Should All Have Been Worshipping Him, And His Portrait Would Have Been More Flattering.

Our Thoughts Are Often Worse Than We Are.

Deep, Unspeakable Suffering May Well Be Called A Baptism, A Regeneration, The Initiation Into A New State. Suffering Can Be Likened To A Baptism - The Passing Over The Threshold Of Pain And Grief And Anguish To Claim A New State Of Being.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

Grant Folly's Prayers That Hinder Folly's Wish, And Serve The Ends Of Wisdom.

It Is A Fact Perhaps Kept A Little Too Much In The Background, That Mothers Have A Self Larger Than Their Maternity, And That When Their Sons Have Become Taller Than Themselves, And Are Gone From Them To College Or Into The World, There Are Wide Spaces Of Their Time Which Are Not Filled With Praying For Their Boys, Reading Old Letters, And Envying Yet Blessing Those Who Are Attending To Their Shirt-buttons.

We Mustn't Be In A Hurry To Fix And Choose Our Own Lot; We Must Wait To Be Guided.

Jealousy Is Never Satisfied With Anything Short Of An Omniscience That Would Detect The Subtlest Fold Of The Heart.

Strange, That Some Of Us, With Quick Alternate Vision, See Beyond Our Infatuations, And Even While We Rave On The Heights, Behold The Wide Plain Where Our Persistent Self Pauses And Awaits Us.

Might, Could, Would - They Are Contemptible Auxiliaries.

Positive Thinking

My Books Don't Seem To Belong To Me After I Have Once Written Them; And I Find Myself Delivering Opinions About Them As If I Had Nothing To Do With Them.

Well, Well, My Boy, If Good Luck Knocks At Your Door, Don't You Put Your Head Out At Window And Tell It To Be Gone About Its Business, That's All.

Old Men's Eyes Are Like Old Men's Memories; They Are Strongest For Things A Long Way Off.

The Difficult Task Of Knowing Another Soul Is Not For Young Gentlemen Whose Consciousness Is Chiefly Made Up Of Their Own Wishes.

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

What Furniture Can Give Such Finish To A Room As A Tender Woman's Face? And Is There Any Harmony Of Tints That Has Such Stirring Of Delight As The Sweet Modulation Of Her Voice?

Vague Memories Hang About The Mind Like Cobwebs.

Poor Dog! I've A Strange Feeling About The Dumb Things As If They Wanted To Speak, And It Was A Trouble To 'em Because They Couldn't. I Can't Help Being Sorry For The Dogs Always, Though Perhaps There's No Need. But They May Well Have More In Them Than They Know How To Make Us Understand, For We Can't Say Half What We Feel, With All Our Words.

Trouble's Made Us Kin.

Her Little Butterfly Soul Fluttered Incessantly Between Memory And Dubious Expectation.

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends - They Ask No Questions; They Pass No Criticisms.

Yes, Isaac Taylor, Who Has Just Published 'the World Of Mind,' Is The Isaac Taylor, Author Of The 'natural History Of Enthusiasm.' I Dare Say By This Time There Is A Want Of Fatty Particles In His Brain.

Who Can Know How Much Of His Most Inward Life Is Made Up Of The Thoughts He Believes Other Men To Have About Him, Until That Fabric Of Opinion Is Threatened With Ruin?

It's Easy Finding Reasons Why Other Folks Should Be Patient.

The Right To Rebellion Is The Right To Seek A Higher Rule, And Not To Wander In Mere Lawlessness.

It Is A Common Sentence That Knowledge Is Power; But Who Hath Duly Considered Or Set Forth The Power Of Ignorance? Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down. Knowledge, Through Patient And Frugal Centuries, Enlarges Discovery And Makes Record Of It; Ignorance, Wanting Its Day's Dinner, Lights A Fire With The Record, And Gives A Flavour To Its One Roast With The Burnt Souls Of Many Generations.

Autobiography At Least Saves A Man Or Woman That The World Is Curious About From The Publication Of A String Of Mistakes Called 'memoirs.

When A Workman Knows The Use Of His Tools, He Can Make A Door As Well As A Window.

I Like To Read About Moses Best, In Th' Old Testament. He Carried A Hard Business Well Through, And Died When Other Folks Were Going To Reap The Fruits; A Man Must Have Courage To Look After His Life So, And Think What'll Come F It After He's Dead And Gone.

It's All One Web, Sir. The Prosperity Of The Country Is One Web.

Subtle Impressions For Which Words Are Quite Too Coarse A Medium.

No Great Deed Is Done By Falterers Who Ask For Certainty.

Vanity Is As Ill At Ease Under Indifference As Tenderness Is Under A Love Which It Cannot Return.

One Of The Tortures Of Jealousy Is, That It Can Never Turn Away Its Eyes From The Thing That Pains It.

Looking At Your Life As A Debt May Seem The Dreariest View Of Things At A Distance; But It Cannot Really Be So. What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of Motive; But Once Beginning To Act With The Penitential, Loving Purpose You Have In Your Mind, There Will Be Unexpected Satisfactions--there Will Be Newly-opening Needs--continually Coming To Carry You On From Day To Day. You Will Find Your Life Growing Like A Plant.

To Have Suffered Much Is Like Knowing Many Languages. Thou Hast Learned To Understand All.

We Have All Our Secret Sins; And If We Knew Ourselves We Should Not Judge Each Other Harshly.

Whether Happiness May Come Or Not, One Should Try And Prepare One's Self To Do Without It.

The Sweetest Of All Success Is That Which One Wins By Hard Exertion.

In Travelling I Shape Myself Betimes To Idleness And Take Fools' Pleasure

There Are Two Ways Of Speaking An Audience Will Always Like: One Is, To Tell Them What They Don't Understand; And The Other Is, To Tell Them What They're Used To.

Keep True, Never Be Ashamed Of Doing Right.

Trouble Comes To Us All In This Life: We Set Our Hearts On Things Which It Isn't God's Will For Us To Have, And Then We Go Sorrowing.

He Who Rules Must Fully Humor As Much As He Commands.

The Tendency Toward Good In Human Nature Has A Force Which No Creed Can Utterly Counteract, And Which Insures The Ultimate Triumph Of That Tendency Over All Dogmatic Perversions.

Better Spend An Extra Hundred Or Two On Your Son's Education, Than Leave It Him In Your Will.

Marriage Is So Unlike Everything Else. There Is Something Even Awful In The Nearness It Brings. Even If We Loved Someone Else Better Than - Than Those We Were Married To, It Would Be No Use. I Mean, Marriage Drinks Up All Our Power Of Giving Or Getting Any Blessedness In That Sort Of Love. I Know It May Be Very Dear, But It Murders Our Marriage, And Then The Marriage Stays With Us Like A Murder, And Everything Else Is Gone.

I Have A Knack Of Hoping, Which Is As Good As An Estate.

We Are Not Apt To Fear For The Fearless, When We Are Companions In Their Danger.

A Patronizing Disposition Always Has Its Meaner Side.

We Mortals, Men And Women, Devour Many A Disappointment Between Breakfast And Dinnertime.

Ah, I Often Think It's Wi' Th' Old Folks As It Is Wi' The Babies; They're Satisfied Wi' Looking, No Matter What They're Looking At. It's God A'mighty's Way O' Quietening 'em, I Reckon, Afore They Go To Sleep.

There Is No Feeling, Perhaps, Except The Extremes Of Fear And Grief, That Does Not Find Relief In Music,--that Does Not Make A Man Sing Or Play The Better.

Nature Repairs Her Ravages, But Not All. The Uptorn Trees Are Not Rooted Again; The Parted Hills Are Left Scarred; If There Is A New Growth, The Trees Are Not The Same As The Old, And The Hills Underneath Their Green Vesture Bear The Marks Of The Past Rending. To The Eyes That Have Dwelt On The Past, There Is No Thorough Repair.

In The Multitude Of Middle-aged Men Who Go About Their Vocations In A Daily Course Determined For Them Much In The Same Way As The Tie Of Their Cravats, There Is Always A Good Number Who Once Meant To Shape Their Own Deeds And Alter The World A Little.

Dear Friends All, A Thousand Christmas Pleasures And Blessings To You -- Good Resolutions And Bright Hopes For The New Year! Amen. People Who Can't Be Witty Exert Themselves To Be Pious Or Affectionate.

Who Has Not Felt The Beauty Of A Woman's Arm? The Unspeakable Suggestions Of Tenderness That Lie In The Dimpled Elbow, And All The Varied Gently-lessening Curves, Down To The Delicate Wrist, With Its Tiniest, Almost Imperceptible Nicks In The Firm Softness.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun. The Perfect Archer Calls The Deer His Own While Yet The Shaft Is Whistling.

When What Is Good Comes Of Age, And Is Likely To Live, There Is Reason For Rejoicing.

Genius ... Is Necessarily Intolerant Of Fetters.

It Is Painful To Be Told That Anything Is Very Fine And Not Be Able To Feel That It Is Fine--something Like Being Blind, While People Talk Of The Sky.

How Oft Review; Each Finding, Like A Friend, Something To Blame, And Something To Commend.

Decide On What You Think Is Right, And Stick To It.

The Most Solid Comfort One Can Fall Back Upon Is The Thought That The Business Of One's Life Is To Help In Some Small Way To Reduce The Sum Of Ignorance, Degradation And Misery On The Face Of This Beautiful Earth.

We Get A Deal O' Useless Things About Us, Only Because We've Got The Money To Spend.

I Don't Want The World To Give Me Anything For My Books Except Money Enough To Save Me From The Temptation To Write Only For Money.

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

Best Friend, My Well-spring In The Wilderness!

Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It.

News Is Often Dispersed As Thoughtlessly And Effectively As That Pollen Which The Bees Carry Off (having No Idea How Powdery They Are) When They Are Buzzing In Search Of Their Particular Nectar.

Her Future, She Thought, Was Likely To Be Worse Than Her Past, For After Her Years Of Contented Renunciation, She Had Slipped Back Into Desire And Longing; She Found Joyless Days Of Distasteful Occupation Harder And Harder; She Found The Image Of The Intense And Varied Life She Yearned For, And Despaired Of, Becoming More And More Importunate.

It Is Difficult For Woman To Try To Be Anything Good When She Is Not Believed In.

But What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Can't Use It?

... Learning To Love Any One Is Like An Increase Of Property, -- It Increases Care, And Brings Many New Fears Lest Precious Things Should Come To Harm.

Precious Things

We Want People To Feel With Us More Than To Act For Us.

Life Began With Waking Up And Loving My Mother's Face.

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.

Scepticismcan Never Be Thoroughly Applied, Else Life Would Come To A Standstill.

One Has To Spend So Many Years In Learning How To Be Happy. I Am Just Beginning To Make Some Progress In The Science, And I Hope To Disprove Young's Theory That "as Soon As We Have Found The Key Of Life It Opes The Gates Of Death." Every Year Strips Us Of At Least One Vain Expectation, And Teaches Us To Reckon Some Solid Good In Its Stead. I Never Will Believe That Our Youngest Days Are Our Happiest. What A Miserable Augury For The Progress Of The Race And The Destination Of The Individual If The More Matured And Enlightened State Is The Less Happy One!

When God Makes His Presence Felt Through Us, We Are Like The Burning Bush: Moses Never Took Any Heed What Sort Of Bush It Was—he Only Saw The Brightness Of The Lord.

Conscientious People Are Apt To See Their Duty In That Which Is The Most Painful Course.

That Quiet Mutual Gaze Of A Trusting Husband And Wife Is Like The First Moment Of Rest Or Refuge From A Great Weariness Or A Great Danger-not To Be Interfered With By Speech Or Action Which Would Distract The Sensations From The Fresh Enjoyment Of Repose.

Ignorant Kindness May Have The Effect Of Cruelty; But To Be Angry With It As If It Were Direct Cruelty Would Be An Ignorant Unkindness.

Our Deeds Still Travel With Us From Afar, And What We Have Been Makes Us What We Are.

The Beginning Of An Acquaintance Whether With Persons Or Things Is To Get A Definite Outline Of Our Ignorance.

Adventure Is Not Outside Man; It Is Within.

A Woman's Lot Is Made For Her By The Love She Accepts.

In High Vengeance There Is Noble Scorn.

It Is Not True That Love Makes All Things Easy; It Makes Us Choose What Is Difficult.

Poor Fellow! I Think He Is In Love With You.' I Am Not Aware Of It. And To Me It Is One Of The Most Odious Things In A Girl's Life, That There Must Always Be Some Supposition Of Falling In Love Coming Between Her And Any Man Who Is Kind To Her... I Have No Ground For The Nonsensical Vanity Of Fancying Everybody Who Comes Near Me Is In Love With Me.

Falling In Love

Would Not Love See Returning Penitence Afar Off, And Fall On Its Neck And Kiss It?

Can Anything Be More Disgusting Than To Hear People Called 'educated' Making Small Jokes About Eating Ham, And Showing Themselves Empty Of Any Real Knowledge As To The Relation Of Their Own Social And Religious Life To The History Of The People They Think Themselves Witty In Insulting? [...] The Best Thing That Can Be Said Of It Is, That It Is A Sign Of The Intellectual Narrowness—in Plain English, The Stupidity Which Is Still The Average Mark Of Our Culture.

Miss Brooke Had That Kind Of Beauty Which Seems To Be Thrown Into Relief By Poor Dress.

Human Feeling Is Like The Mighty Rivers That Bless The Earth: It Does Not Wait For Beauty — It Flows With Resistless Force And Brings Beauty With It.

If You Are Not Proud Of Your Cellar, There Is No Thrill Of Satisfaction In Seeing Your Guest Hold Up His Wineglass To The Light And Look Judicial.

The Wrong That Rouses Our Angry Passions Finds Only A Medium In Us; It Passes Through Us Like A Vibration, And We Inflict What We Have Suffered.

Among All Forms Of Mistake, Prophecy Is The Most Gratuitous.

Primary (the Lds Church's Sunday School For Children) Is Where You Go To Do With Somebody Else's Mother The Things You Would Do With Your Own Mother If She Weren't So Busy Teaching Primary.

I Couldn't Live In Peace If I Put The Shadow Of A Willful Sin Between Myself And God.

I Think I Should Have No Other Mortal Wants, If I Could Always Have Plenty Of Music.

Our Vanities Differ As Our Noses Do: All Conceit Is Not The Same Conceit, But Varies In Correspondence With The Minutiae Of Mental Make In Which One Of Us Differs From Another.

History Repeats Itself.

But The Effect Of Her Being On Those Around Her Was Incalculably Diffusive: For The Growing Good Of The World Is Partly Dependent On Unhistoric Acts; And That Things Are Not So Ill With You And Me As They Might Have Been, Is Half Owing To The Number Who Lived Faithfully A Hidden Life, And Rest In Unvisited Tombs.

The Years Between Fifty And Seventy Are The Hardest. You Are Always Being Asked To Do Things, And Yet You Are Not Decrepit Enough To Turn Them Down.

To Men Who Only Aim At Escaping Felony, Nothing Short Of The Prisoner's Dock Is Disgrace.

I Love Words; They Are The Quoits, The Bows, The Staves That Furnish The Gymnasium Of The Mind.

Those Only Can Thoroughly Feel The Meaning Of Death Who Know What Is Perfect Love.

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 Are All Humiliated By The Sudden Discovery Of A Fact Which Has Existed Very Comfortably And Perhaps Been Staring At Us In Private While We Have Been Making Up Our World Entirely Without It.

Pride Only Helps Us To Be Generous; It Never Makes Us So, Any More Than Vanity Makes Us Witty.

I Love Not To Be Choked With Other Men's Thoughts.

A Maggot Must Be Born I' The Rotten Cheese To Like It.

Some Gentlemen Have Made An Amazing Figure In Literature By General Discontent With The Universe As A Trap Of Dulness Into Which Their Great Souls Have Fallen By Mistake; But The Sense Of A Stupendous Self And An Insignificant World May Have Its Consolations. Lydgate's Discontent Was Much Harder To Bear; It Was The Sense That There Was A Grand Existence In Thought And Effective Action Lying Around Him, While His Self Was Being Narrowed Into The Miserable Isolation Of Egoistic Fears, And Vulgar Anxieties For Events That Might Allay Such Fears.

Receptiveness Is A Rare And Massive Power, Like Fortitude.

I Might Mention All The Divine Charms Of A Bright Spring Day, But If You Had Never In Your Life Utterly Forgotten Yourself In Straining Your Eyes After The Mounting Lark, Or In Wandering Through The Still Lanes When The Fresh-opened Blossoms Fill Them With A Sacred Silent Beauty Like That Of Fretted Aisles, Where Would Be The Use Of My Descriptive Catalogue?

To Superficial Observers His Chin Had Too Vanishing An Aspect, Looking As If It Were Being Gradually Reabsorbed. And It Did Indeed Cause Him Some Difficulty About The Fit Of His Satin Stocks, For Which Chins Were At That Time Useful.

Surely, Surely The Only One True Knowledge Of Our Fellow Man Is That Which Enables Us To Feel With Him--which Gives Us A Fine Ear For The Heart-pulses That Are Beating Under The Mere Clothes Of Circumstance And Opinion.

In The Love Of A Brave And Faithful Man There Is Always A Strain Of Maternal Tenderness; He Gives Out Again Those Beams Of Protecting Fondness Which Were Shed On Him As He Lay On His Mother's Knee.

There's Things To Put Up Wi' In Ivery Place, An' You May Change An' Change An' Not Better Yourself When All's Said An' Done.

Better Yourself

As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

It Is Pleasant To Have A Kind Word Now And Then When One Is Not Near Enough To Have A Kind Glance Or A Hearty Shake By The Hand.

You Must Mind And Not Lower The Church In People's Eyes By Seeming To Be Frightened About It For Such A Little Thing.

A Human Being In This Aged Nation Of Ours Is A Very Wonderful Hole, The Slow Creation Of Long Interchanging Influences; And Charm Is A Result Of Two Such Wholes, The One Loving And The One Loved.

There Are Characters Which Are Continually Creating Collisions And Nodes For Themselves In Dramas Which Nobody Is Prepared To Act With Them. Their Susceptibilities Will Clash Against Objects That Remain Innocently Quiet.

To An Old Memory Like Mine The Present Days Are But As A Little Water Poured On The Deep.

O May I Join The Choir Invisible Of Those Immortal Dead Who Live Again In Minds Made Better By Their Presence; Live In Pulses Stirred To Generosity, In Deeds Of Daring Rectitude, In Scorn For Miserable Aims That End With Self, In Thoughts Sublime That Pierce The Night Like Stars, And With Their Mild Persistence Urge Men's Search To Vaster Issues.

I Carry My Unwritten Poems In Cipher On My Face!

Joy Is The Best Of Wine.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

A Peasant Can No More Help Believing In A Traditional Superstition Than A Horse Can Help Trembling When Be Sees A Camel.

... There Is A Lightness About The Feminine Mind--a Touch And Go--music, The Fine Arts, That Kind Of Thing--they Should Study Those Up To A Certain Point, Women Should; But In A Light Way, You Know.

The Disappointments Of Life Can Never, Any More Than Its Pleasures, Be Estimated Singly; And The Healthiest And Most Agreeable Of Men Is Exposed To That Coincidence Of Various Vexations, Each Heightening The Effect Of The Other, Which May Produce In Him Something Corresponding To The Spontaneous And Externally Unaccountable Moodiness Of The Morbid And Disagreeable.

No Story Is The Same To Us After A Lapse Of Time; Or Rather We Who Read It Are No Longer The Same Interpreters.

The Select Natures Who Pant After The Ideal, And Find Nothing In Pantaloons Or Petticoats Great Enough To Command Their Reverence And Love, Are Curiously In Unison With The Narrowest And Pettiest.

I Know Forgiveness Is A Man's Duty, But, To My Thinking, That Can Only Mean As You're To Give Up All Thoughts O' Taking Revenge: It Can Never Mean As You're T' Have Your Old Feelings Back Again, For That's Not Possible.

Mysterious Haunts Of Echoes Old And Far, The Voice Divine Of Human Loyalty.

To Fear The Examination Of Any Proposition Apears To Me An Intellectual And A Moral Palsy That Will Ever Hinder The Firm Grasping Of Any Substance Whatever.

What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of A Motive.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But To Be Told That I Am Loved; The Realm Of Silence Is Large Enough Beyond The Grave.

There Are Answers Which, In Turning Away Wrath, Only Send It To The Other End Of The Room, And To Have A Discussion Coolly Waived When You Feel That Justice Is All On Your Own Side Is Even More Exasperating In Marriage Than In Philosophy.

The Impulse To Confession Almost Always Requires The Presence Of A Fresh Ear And A Fresh Heart; And In Our Moments Of Spiritual Need, The Man To Whom We Have No Tie But Our Common Nature, Seems Nearer To Us Than Mother, Brother, Or Friend. Our Daily Familiar Life Is But A Hiding Of Ourselves From Each Other Behind A Screen Of Trivial Words And Deeds, And Those Who Sit With Us At The Same Hearth, Are Often The Farthest Off From The Deep Human Soul Within Us, Full Of Unspoken Evil And Unacted Good.

The Saints Were Cowards Who Stood By To See Christ Crucified: They Should Have Flung Themselves Upon The Roman Spears, And Died In Vain-- The Grandest Death, To Die In Vain--for Love Greater Than Sways The Forces Of The World!

There Is So Much To Read And The Days Are So Short! I Get More Hungry For Knowledge Every Day, And Less Able To Satisfy My Hunger.

Men Can Do Nothing Without The Make-believe Of A Beginning.

There Is No Sense Of Ease Like The Ease We Felt In Those Scenes Where We Were Born.

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

A Woman Mixed Of Such Fine Elements That Were All Virtue And Religion Dead She'd Make Them Newly, Being What She Was.

But What We Call Our Despair Is Often Only The Painful Eagerness Of Unfed Hope.

We Have Had An Unspeakably Delightful Journey, One Of Those Journeys Which Seem To Divide One's Life In Two, By The New Ideas They Suggest And The New Views Of Interest They Open.

Society Never Made The Preposterous Demand That A Man Should Think As Much About His Own Qualifications For Making A Charming Girl Happy As He Thinks Of Hers For Making Himself Happy.

Signs Are Small Measurable Things, But Interpretations Are Illimitable, And In Girls Of Sweet, Ardent Nature, Every Sign Is Apt To Conjure Up Wonder, Hope, Belief, Vast As A Sky, And Colored By A Thimbleful Of Matter In The Shape Of Knowledge....wrong Reasoning Sometimes Lands Poor Mortals In Right Conclusions: Starting A Long Way Off The True Point, And Proceeding By Loops And Zigzags, We Now And Then Arrive Just Where We Ought To Be. Just Because Miss Brooke Was Hasty In Her Trust, It Is Not Therefore Clear That Mr. Casaubon Was Unworthy Of It.

There Are Natures In Which, If They Love Us, We Are Conscious Of Having A Sort Of Baptism And Consecration.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music.

What Greater Thing Is There For Two Human Souls Than To Feel That They Are Joined - To Strengthen Each Other - To Be At One With Each Other In Silent Unspeakable Memories.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

Oh, Child, Men's Men: Gentle Or Simple, They're Much Of A Muchness.

Sir Joshua Would Have Been Glad To Take Her Portrait; And He Would Have Had An Easier Task Than The Historian At Least In This, That He Would Not Have Had To Represent The Truth Of Change - Only To Give Stability To One Beautiful Moment.

The Worst Of All Hobbies Are Those That People Think They Can Get Money At. They Shoot Their Money Down Like Corn Out Of A Sack Then.

... The Majority Of Us Scarcely See More Distinctly The Faultiness Of Our Own Conduct Than The Faultiness Of Our Own Arguments, Orthe Dulness [sic] Of Our Own Jokes.

There Are But Two Sorts Of Government: One Where Men Show Their Teeth At Each Other, And One Where Men Show Their Tongues And Lick The Feet Of The Strongest.

Do We Not All Agree To Call Rapid Thought And Noble Impulse By The Name Of Inspiration?

Ah! But The Moods Lie In His Nature, My Boy, Just As Much As His Reflections Did, And More. A Man Can Never Do Anything At Variance With His Own Nature. He Carries Within Him The Germ Of His Most Exceptional Action; And If We Wise People Make Eminent Fools Of Ourselves On Any Particular Occasion, We Must Endure The Legitimate Conclusion That We Carry A Few Grains Of Folly To Our Ounce Of Wisdom.

It Always Seemed To Me A Sort Of Clever Stupidity Only To Have One Sort Of Talent - Like A Carrier Pigeon.

All Things Except Reason And Order Are Possible With A Mob.

If I Could Only Fancy Myself Clever, It Would Be Better, But To Be A Failure Of Nature And To Know It Is Not A Comfortable Lot. It Is The Last Lesson One Learns, To Be Contented With One's Inferiority -- But It Must Be Learned.

... The Business Of Life Shuts Us Up Within The Environs Of London And Within Sight Of Human Advancement, Which I Should Be So Very Glad To Believe In Without Seeing.

In The Chequered Area Of Human Experience The Seasons Are All Mingled As In The Golden Age: Fruit And Blossom Hang Together; In The Same Moment The Sickle Is Reaping And The Seed Is Sprinkled; One Tends The Green Cluster And Another Treads The Wine-press. Nay, In Each Of Our Lives Harvest And Spring-time Are Continually One, Until Death Himself Gathers Us And Sows Us Anew In His Invisible Fields.

When You've Been Used To Doing Things, And They've Been Taken Away From You, It's As If Your Hands Had Been Cut Off, And You Felt The Fingers As Are Of No Use To You.

Conscience Is Harder Than Our Enemies, Knows More, Accuses With More Nicety.

Until Every Good Man Is Brave, We Must Expect To Find Many Good Women Timid--too Timid Even To Believe In The Correctness Of Their Own Best Promptings, When These Would Place Them In A Minority.

Oh, Sir, The Loftiest Hopes On Earth Draw Lots With Meaner Hopes: Heroic Breasts, Breathing Bad Air, Run Risk Of Pestilence; Or, Lacking Lime-juice When They Cross The Line, May Languish With The Scurvy.

I Have No Courage To Write Much Unless I Am Written To. I Soon Begin To Think That There Are Plenty Of Other Correspondents More Interesting - So If You All Want To Hear From Me You Know The Conditions.

Brothers Are So Unpleasant.

Blameless People Are Always The Most Exasperating.

With Memory Set Smarting Like A Reopened Wound, A Man's Past Is Not Simply A Dead History, An Outworn Preparation Of The Present: It Is Not A Repented Error Shaken Loose From The Life: It Is A Still Quivering Part Of Himself, Bringing Shudders And Bitter Flavors And The Tinglings Of A Merited Shame.

We Cannot Reform Our Forefathers.

One Couldn't Carry On Life Comfortably Without A Little Blindness To The Fact That Everything Has Been Said Better Than We Can Put It Ourselves.

What Can Still That Hunger Of The Heart Which Sickens The Eye For Beauty, And Makes Sweet-scented Ease An Oppression?

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