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But How Little We Know What Would Make Paradise For Our Neighbours! We Judge From Our Own Desires, And Our Neighbours Themselves Are Not Always Open Enough Even To Throw Out A Hint Of Theirs.

-George Eliot

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But How Little We

George Eliot

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But How Little We Know What Would Make Paradise For Our Neighbours! We Judge From Our Own Desires, And Our Neighbours Themselves Are Not Always Open Enough Even To Throw Out A Hint Of Theirs.

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The Finest Language Is Mostly Made Up Of Simple Unimposing Words.

Whatever Be Thy Fate Today, Remember, This Will Pass Away!

I Am Not Magnanimous Enough To Like People Who Speak To Me Without Seeming To See Me

Though I Am Not Endowed With An Ear To Seize Those Earthly Harmonies, Which To Some Devout Souls Have Seemed, As It Were, The Broken Echoes Of The Heavenly Choir--i Apprehend That There Is A Law In Music, Disobedience Whereunto Would Bring Us In Our Singing To The Level Of Shrieking Maniacs Or Howling Beasts.

We Are All Apt To Believe What The World Believes About Us.

It's No Trifle At Her Time At Her Time Of Life To Part With A Doctor Who Knows Her Constitution.

Try To Take Hold Of Your Sensibility, And Use It As If It Were A Faculty, Like Vision.

She Thought It Was Part Of The Hardship Of Her Life That There Was Laid Upon Her The Burthen Of Larger Wants Than Others Seemed To Feel – That She Had To Endure This Wide Hopeless Yearning For That Something, Whatever It Was, That Was Greatest And Best On This Earth.

If We Need A True Conception Of The Popular Character To Guide Our Sympathies Rightly, We Need It Equally To Check Our Theories, And Direct Us In Their Application.

'tis God Gives Skill, But Not Without Men's Hand: He Could Not Make Antonio Stradivarius's Violins Without Antonio.

Friendship Is The Inexpressible Comfort Of Feeling Safe With A Person, Having Neither To Weigh Thoughts Nor Measure Words.

[it Is Easier] To Quell Emotion Than To Incur The Consequences Of Venting It.

An Ass May Bray A Good While Before He Shakes The Stars Down.

To Be Candid, In Middlemarch Phraseology, Meant, To Use An Early Opportunity Of Letting Your Friends Know That You Did Not Take A Cheerful View Of Their Capacity, Their Conduct, Or Their Position; And A Robust Candor Never Waited To Be Asked For Its Opinion.

Certainly The Determining Acts Of Her Life Were Not Ideally Beautiful. They Were The Mixed Result Of Young And Novel Impulse Struggling Amidst The Conditions Of An Imperfect Social State, In Which Great Feelings Will Often Take The Aspect Of Error, And Great Faith The Aspect Of Illusion.

He Had The Superficial Kindness Of A Good-humored, Self-satisfied Nature, That Fears No Rivalry, And Has Encountered No Contrarieties.

Our Deeds Determine Us, As Much As We Determine Our Deeds.

But With Regard To Critical Occasions, It Often Happens That All Moments Seem Comfortably Remote Until The Last.

The Tread Of Coming Footsteps Cheats The Midnight Watcher Who Holds Her Heart And Waits To Hear Them Pause, And Hears Them Never Pause, But Pass And Die.

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

... Goodness Is Of A Modest Nature, Easily Discouraged, And When Much Elbowed In Early Life By Unabashed Vices, Is Apt To Retire Into Extreme Privacy, So That It Is More Easily Believed In By Those Who Construct A Selfish Old Gentleman Theoretically, Than By Those Who Form The Narrower Judgments Based On His Personal Acquaintance.

I Wish Always To Be Quoted As George Eliot.

Given, A Man With Moderate Intellect, A Moral Standard Not Higher Than The Average, Some Rhetorical Affluence And A Great Glibness Of Speech, What Is The Career In Which, Without The Aid Of Birth Or Money, He May Most Easily Attain Power And Reputation In English Society? Where Is That Goshen Of Mediocrity In Which A Smattering Of Science And Learning Will Pass For Profound Instruction, Where Platitudes Will Be Accepted As Wisdom, Bigoted Narrowness As Holy Zeal, Unctuous Egoism As God-given Piety?

... We All Know The Wag's Definition Of A Philanthropist: A Man Whose Charity Increases Directly As The Square Of The Distance.

I'm Not Denyin' The Women Are Foolish. God Almighty Made 'em To Match The Men.

When A Man Has Seen The Woman Whom He Would Have Chosen If He Had Intended To Marry Speedily, His Remaining A Bachelor Will Usually Depend On Her Resolution Rather Than On His.

I Carry My Unwritten Poems In Cipher On My Face!

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

I Suppose It Was That In Courtship Everything Is Regarded As Provisional And Preliminary, And The Smallest Sample Of Virtue Or Accomplishment Is Taken To Guarantee Delightful Stores Which The Broad Leisure Of Marriage Will Reveal. But The Door-sill Of Marriage Once Crossed, Expectation Is Concentrated On The Present. Having Once Embarked On Your Marital Voyage, It Is Impossible Not To Be Aware That You Make No Way And That The Sea Is Not Within Sight-that, In Fact, You Are Exploring An Enclosed Basin.

It's A Strange Thing To Think Of A Man As Can Lift A Chair With His Teeth, And Walk Fifty Mile On End, Trembling And Turning Hot And Cold At Only A Look From One Woman Out Of All The Rest I' The World. It's A Mystery We Can Give No Account Of.

In The Man Whose Childhood Has Known Caresses And Kindness, There Is Always A Fiber Of Memory That Can Be Touched To Gentle Issues.

Correct English Is The Slang Of Prigs.

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.

What People Do Who Go Into Politics I Can't Think; It Drives Me Almost Mad To See Mismanagement Over Only A Few Hundred Acres.

What Business Has An Old Bachelor Like That To Marry?' Said Sir James. 'he Has One Foot In The Grave.' 'he Means To Draw It Out Again, I Suppose.

All Honour And Reverence To The Divine Beauty Of Form! Let Us Cultivate It To The Utmost In Men, Women And Children -- In Our Gardens And In Our Houses. But Let Us Love That Other Beauty Too, Which Lies In No Secret Of Proportion But In The Secret Of Deep Human Sympathy.

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.

People Who Live At A Distance Are Naturally Less Faulty Than Those Immediately Under Our Own Eyes.

Steady Work Turns Genius To A Loom.

The Very Truth Hath A Colour From The Disposition Of The Utterer.

How Can One Ever Do Anything Nobly Christian, Living Among People With Such Petty Thoughts?

Falsehood Is Easy, Truth So Difficult.

In So Complex A Thing As Human Nature, We Must Consider It Is Hard To Find Rules Without Exception.

It Is Better Sometimes Not To Follow Great Reformers Of Abuses Beyond The Threshold Of Their Homes.

Do We Not All Agree To Call Rapid Thought And Noble Impulse By The Name Of Inspiration? After Our Subtlest Analysis Of The Mental Process, We Must Still Say That Our Highest Thoughts And Our Best Deeds Are All Given To Us.

What Is Better Than To Love And Live With The Loved? -- But That Must Sometimes Bring Us To Live With The Dead; And This Too Turns At Last Into A Very Tranquil And Sweet Tie, Safe From Change And Injury.

Our Growing Thought Makes Growing Revelation.

It Was Not That She Was Out Of Temper, But That The World Was Not Equal To The Demands Of Her Fine Organism.

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.

I Flutter All Ways, And Fly In None.

Children Demand That Their Heroes Should Be Freckle Less, And Easily Believe Them So: Perhaps A First Discovery To The Contrary Is Less Revolutionary Shock To A Passionate Child Than The Threatened Downfall Of Habitual Beliefs Which Makes The World Seem To Totter For Us In Maturer Life.

The Worst Service, I Fancy, That Anyone Can Do For Truth, Is To Set Silly People Writing On Its Behalf.

'character," Says Novalis, In One Of His Questionable Aphorisms - Character Is Destiny'.

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

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

I Could Not Without Vile Hypocrisy And A Miserable Truckling To The Smile Of The World ... Profess To Join In Worship Which I Wholly Disapprove.

So Shall I Join The Choir Invisible Whose Music Is The Gladness Of The World.

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

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.

Selfish— A Judgment Readily Passed By Those Who Have Never Tested Their Own Power Of Sacrifice.

Nice Distinctions Are Troublesome. It Is So Much Easier To Say That A Thing Is Black, Than To Discriminate The Particular Shade Of Brown, Blue, Or Green, To Which It Really Belongs. It Is So Much Easier To Make Up Your Mind That Your Neighbour Is Good For Nothing, Than To Enter Into All The Circumstances That Would Oblige You To Modify That Opinion.

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

Those Old Stories Of Visions And Dreams Guiding Men Have Their Truth; We Are Saved By Making The Future Present To Ourselves.

A Good Horse Makes Short Miles.

The Presence Of A Noble Nature, Generous In Its Wishes, Ardent In Its Charity, Changes The Lights For Us: We Begin To See Things Again In Their Larger, Quieter Masses, And To Believe That We Too Can Be Seen And Judged In The Wholeness Of Our Character.

There Is No Sorrow I Have Thought More About Than That-to Love What Is Great, And Try To Reach It, And Yet To Fail.

The Years Seem To Rush By Now, And I Think Of Death As A Fast Approaching End Of A Journey-double And Treble Reason For Loving As Well As Working While It Is Day.

College Mostly Makes People Like Bladders-just Good For Nothing But T'hold The Stuff As Is Poured Into 'em.

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

I Don't Feel Sure About Doing Good In Any Way Now; Everything Seems Like Going On A Mission To A People Whose Language I Don't Know.

There Is Hardly Any Mental Misery Worse Than That Of Having Our Own Serious Phrases, Our Own Rooted Beliefs, Caricatured By A Charlatan Or A Hireling.

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.

It Is One Thing To See Your Road, Another To Cut It.

Our Instructed Vagrancy, Which Has Hardly Time To Linger By The Hedgerows, But Runs Away Early To The Tropics, And Is At Home With Palms And Banyans - Which Is Nourished On Books Of Travel, And Stretches The Theatre Of Its Imagination To The Zambesi.

Particular Lies May Speak A General Truth.

Friendships Begin With Liking Or Gratitude- Roots That Can Be Pulled Up.

Souls Have Complexions Too: What Will Suit One Will Not Suit Another

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

I've Never Any Pity For Conceited People, Because I Think They Carry Their Comfort About With Them.

Who Can Prove Wit To Be Witty When With Deeper Ground Dulness Intuitive Declares Wit Dull?

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

To Be A Poet Is To Have A Soul So Quick To Discern, That No Shade Of Quality Escapes It, And So Quick To Feel, That Discernment Is But A Hand Playing With Finely-ordered Variety On The Chords Of Emotion--a Soul In Which Knowledge Passes Instantaneously Into Feeling, And Feeling Flashes Back As A New Organ Of Knowledge.

I Think I Dislike What I Don't Like More Than I Like What I Like.

It Is Worth Repeating That Powerful Imagination Is Not False Outward Vision, But Intense Inward Representation, And A Creative Energy Constantly Fed By Susceptibility To The Veriest Minutiæ Of Experience, Which It Reproduces And Constructs In Fresh And Fresh Wholes; Not The Habitual Confusion Of Provable Fact With The Fictions Of Fancy And Transient Inclination, But A Breadth Of Ideal Association Which Informs Every Material Object, Every Incidental Fact With Far-reaching Memories And Storied Residues Of Passion, Bringing Into New Light The Less Obvious Relations To Human Existence.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But Also To Be Told I Am Loved.

The Only Failure One Should Fear, Is Not Hugging To The Purpose They See As Best.

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

Ignorance ... Is A Painless Evil; So, I Should Think, Is Dirt, Considering The Merry Faces That Go Along With It.

Our Selfishness Is So Robust And Many-clutching That, Well Encouraged, It Easily Devours All Sustenance Away From Our Poor Little Scruples.

Of What Use, However, Is A General Certainty That An Insect Will Not Walk With His Head Hindmost, When What You Need To Know Is The Play Of Inward Stimulus That Sends Him Hither And Thither In A Network Of Possible Paths?

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

The Commonest Man, Who Has His Ounce Of Sense And Feeling, Is Conscious Of The Difference Between A Lovely, Delicate Woman And A Coarse One. Even A Dog Feels A Difference In Her Presence.

... One Always Believes One's Own Town To Be More Stupid Than Any Other.

I Have Always Been Thinking Of The Different Ways In Which Christianity Is Taught, And Whenever I Find One Way That Makes It A Wider Blessing Than Any Other, I Cling To That As The Truest--i Mean That Which Takes In The Most Good Of All Kinds, And Brings In The Most People As Sharers In It. It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

The Best Fire Doesna Flare Up The Soonest.

Life Would Be No Better Than Candlelight Tinsel And Daylight Rubbish If Our Spirits Were Not Touched By What Has Been.

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.

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.

The Bow Always Strung ... Will Not Do.

Our Dead Are Never Dead To Us Until We Have Forgotten Them: They Can Be Injured By Us, They Can Be Wounded; They Know All Our Penitence, All Our Aching Sense That Their Place Is Empty, All The Kisses We Bestow On The Smallest Relic Of Their Presence.

What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of A Motive.

Great Love Has Many Attributes, And Shrines For Varied Worshippers, But His Force Divine Shows Most Its Many-named Fulness In The Man Whose Nature Multitudinously Mixed-- Each Ardent Impulse Grappling With A Thought-- Resists All Easy Gladness, All Content Save Mystic Rapture, Where The Questioning Soul Flooded With Consciousness Of Good That Is Finds Life One Bounteous Answer.

If You Deliver An Opinion At All, It Is Mere Stupidity Not To Do It With An Air Of Conviction And Well-founded Knowledge. You Make It Your Own In Uttering It, And Naturally Get Fond Of It.

I'm Not One Of Those That Can See The Cat In The Dairy And Wonder What She's There For.

I Think Cheerfulness Is A Fortune In Itself.

Having Once Embarked On Your Marital Voyage, It Is Impossible Not To Be Aware That You Make No Way And The Sea Is Not Within Sight; That In Fact, You Are Exploring An Enclosed Basin.

Some Discouragement, Some Faintness Of Heart At The New Real Future Which Replaces The Imaginary, Is Not Unusual, And We Do Not Expect People To Be Deeply Moved By What Is Not Unusual. That Element Of Tragedy Which Lies In The Very Fact Of Frequency Has Not Yet Wrought Itself Into The Coarse Emotion Of Mankind, And Perhaps Our Frames Could Hardly Bear Much Of It. If We Had A Keen Vision And Feeling Of All Ordinary Human Life, It Would Be Like Hearing The Grass Grow And The Squirrel's Heart Beat, And We Should Die Of That Roar Which Lies On The Other Side Of Silence.

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

Science Is Properly More Scrupulous Than Dogma. Dogma Gives A Charter To Mistake, But The Very Breath Of Science Is A Contest With Mistake, And Must Keep The Conscience Alive.

... We Are Most Of Us Brought Up In The Notion That The Highest Motive For Not Doing A Wrong Is Something Irrespective Of The Beings Who Would Suffer The Wrong.

The Responsibility Of Tolerance Lies With Those Who Have The Wider Vision.

He Was At A Starting Point Which Makes Many A Man's Career A Fine Subject For Betting, If There Were Any Gentlemen Given To That Amusement Who Could Appreciate The Complicated Probabilities Of An Arduous Purpose. . . .

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

Human Longings Are Perversely Obstinate; And To The Man Whose Mouth Is Watering For A Peach, It Is Of No Use To Offer The Largest Vegetable Marrow.

Our Deeds Are Fetters That We Forge Ourselves.

I Don't See How A Man Is To Be Good For Much Unless He Has Some One Woman To Love Him Dearly.

Love Is Frightened At The Intervals Of Insensibility And Callousness That Encroach By Little And Little On The Domain Of Grief, And It Makes Efforts To Recall The Keenness Of The First Anguish.

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.

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.

Human Experience Is Usually Paradoxical.

Human Experience

If A Man Goes A Little Too Far Along A New Road, It Is Usually Himself That He Harms More Than Any One Else.

... The True Seeing Is Within; And Painting Stares At You With An Insistent Imperfection.

What Quarrel, What Harshness, What Unbelief In Each Other Can Subsist In The Presence Of A Great Calamity, When All The Artificial Vesture Of Our Life Is Gone, And We Are All One With Each Other In Primitive Mortal Needs?

Alas! The Scientific Conscience Had Got Into The Debasing Company Of Money Obligation And Selfish Respects.

There Comes A Terrible Moment To Many Souls When The Great Movements Of The World, The Larger Destinies Of Mankind, Which Have Lain Aloof In Newspapers And Other Neglected Reading, Enter Like An Earthquake Into Their Own Lives--when The Slow Urgency Of Growing Generations Turns Into The Tread Of An Invading Army Or The Dire Clash Of Civil War, And Grey Fathers Know Nothing To Seek For But The Corpses Of Their Blooming Sons, And Girls Forget All Vanity To Make Lint And Bandages Which May Serve For The Shattered Limbs Of Their Betrothed Husbands.

He Was Of An Impressible Nature, And Lived A Great Deal In Other People's Opinions And Feelings Concerning Himself.

As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

For What Is Love Itself, For The One We Love Best? An Enfolding Of Immeasurable Cares Which Yet Are Better Than Any Joys Outside Our Love.

I Would Not Creep Along The Coast But Steer Out In Mid-sea, By Guidance Of The Stars.

As Soon As We Lay Ourselves Entirely At His Feet, We Have Enough Light Given Us To Guide Our Own Steps; As The Foot-soldier Who Hears Nothing Of The Councils That Determine The Course Of The Great Battle He Is In, Hears Plainly Enough The Word Of Command That They Must Themselves Obey.

People Who Can't Be Witty Exert Themselves To Be Devout And Affectionate.

I Trust You As Holy Men Trust God; You Could Do Nought That Was Not Pure And Loving, Though The Deed Might Pierce Me Unto Death.

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfoldingamong Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful; Whose Distinguished Mind Is A Little Spotted With Commonness; Who Is A Little Pinched Here And Protruberent There With Native Prejudices; Or Whose Better Energies Are Liable To Lapse Down The Wrong Channel Under The Influence Of Transient Solicitations?

Pride Helps Us; And Pride Is Not A Bad Thing When It Only Urges Us To Hide Our Own Hurts—not To Hurt Others.

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfolding. . . Among Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful. . . .

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

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.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music ... The Rounded Neck, The Dimpled Arm, Move Us By Something More Than Their Prettiness--by Their Close Kinship With All We Have Known Of Tenderness And Peace.

It Seems To Me As A Woman's Face Doesna Want Flowers; It's Almost Like A Flower Itself.... It's Like When A Man's Singing A Good Tune, You Don't Want T' Hear Bells Tinkling And Interfering Wi' The Sound.

And, Of Course Men Know Best About Everything, Except What Women Know Better.

There Are Some Cases In Which The Sense Of Injury Breeds Not The Will To Inflict Injuries And Climb Over Them As A Ladder, But A Hatred Of All Injury.

It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

Opinions: Men's Thoughts About Great Subjects. Taste: Their Thoughts About Small Ones: Dress, Behavior, Amusements, Ornaments.

Of All Forms Of Human Error, Prophesy Is The Most Avoidable.

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

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.

Say "i Love You" To Those You Love. The Eternal Silence Is Long Enough To Be Silent In, And That Awaits Us All.

It Is Good To Be Helpful And Kindly, But Don't Give Yourself To Be Melted Into Candle Grease For The Benefit Of The Tallow Trade.

One Must Be Poor To Know The Luxury Of Giving!

The Floods Of Nonsense Printed In The Form Of Critical Opinions Seem To Me A Chief Curse Of The Times, A Chief Obstacle To True Culture.

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

In Every Parting There Is An Image Of Death.

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

I Have The Conviction That Excessive Literary Production Is A Social Offense. ... Everyone Who Contributes To The 'too Much' Of Literature Is Doing Grave Social Injury.

There Is One Order Of Beauty Which Seems Made To Turn Heads. It Is A Beauty Like That Of Kittens, Or Very Small Downy Ducks Making Gentle Rippling Noises With Their Soft Bills, Or Babies Just Beginning To Toddle.

Education Was Almost Entirely A Matter Of Luck — Usually Of Ill-luck — In Those Distant Days.

One Soweth And Another Reapeth Is A Verity That Applies To Evil As Well As Good.

Genius At First Is Little More Than A Great Capacity For Receiving Discipline.

For Pain Must Enter Into Its Glorified Life Of Memory Before It Can Turn Into Compassion.

Inclination Snatches Arguments To Make Indulgence Seem Judicious Choice.

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

Oh, The Comfort, The Inexpressible Comfort Of Feeling Safe With A Person; Having Neither To Weigh Thoughts Nor Measure Words, But To Pour Them All Out, Just As They Are, Chaff And Grain Together, Knowing That A Faithful Hand Will Take And Sift Them, Keep What Is Worth Keeping, And Then, With A Breath Of Kindness, Blow The Rest Away.

He Was One Of Those Men, And They Are Not The Commonest, Of Whom We Can Know The Best Only By Following Them Away From The Marketplace, The Platform, And The Pulpit, Entering With Them Into Their Own Homes, Hearing The Voice With Which They Speak To The Young And Aged About Their Own Hearthstone, And Witnessing Their Thoughtful Care For The Everyday Wants Of Everyday Companions, Who Take All Their Kindness As A Matter Of Course, And Not As A Subject For Panegyric.

Gossip Is A Sort Of Smoke That Comes From The Dirty Tobacco-pipes Of Those Who Diffuse It: It Proves Nothing But The Bad Taste Of The Smoker.

Ignorance Gives One A Large Range Of Probabilities.

I Would Rather Not Be Engaged. When People Are Engaged, They Begin To Think Of Being Married Soon, And I Should Like Everything To Go On For A Long While Just As It Is.

I Hold It A Blasphemy To Say That A Man Ought Not To Fight Against Authority: There Is No Great Religion And No Great Freedom That Has Not Done It, In The Beginning.

There Are Various Orders Of Beauty, Causing Men To Make Fools Of Themselves In Various Styles, From The Desperate To The Sheepish; But There Is One Order Of Beauty Which Seems Made To Turn The Heads Not Only Of Men, But Of All Intelligent Mammals, Even Of Women. It Is A Beauty Like That Of Kittens, Or Very Small Downy Ducks Making Gentle Rippling Noises With Their Soft Bills, Or Babies Just Beginning To Toddle And To Engage In Conscious Mischief — A Beauty With Which You Can Never Be Angry, But That You Feel Ready To Crush For Inability To Comprehend The State Of Mind Into Which It Throws You.

People Are Almost Always Better Than Their Neighbors Think They Are.

I Am Open To Conviction On All Points Except Dinner And Debts. I Hold That The One Must Be Eaten And The Other Paid.

In The Schoolroom Her Quick Mind Had Taken Readily That Strong Starch Of Unexplained Rules And Disconnected Facts Which Saves Ignorance From Any Painful Sense Of Limpness.

Are There Many Situations More Sublimely Tragic Than The Struggle Of The Soul With The Demand To Renounce A Work Which Has Been All The Significance Of Its Life--a Significance Which Is To Vanish As The Waters Which Come And Go Where No Man Has Need Of Them?

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.

In Bed Our Yesterdays Are Too Oppressive: If A Man Can Only Get Up, Though It Be But To Whistle Or To Smoke, He Has A Present Which Offers Some Resistance To The Past—sensations Which Assert Themselves Against Tyrannous Memories.

They The Royal-hearted Women Are Who Nobly Love The Noblest, Yet Have Grace For Needy Suffering Lives In Lowliest Place, Carrying A Choicer Sunlight In Their Smile, The Heavenliest Ray That Pitieth The Vile.

Minds Fettered By This Doctrine No Longer Inquire Concerning A Proposition Whether It Is Attested By Sufficient Evidence, But Whether It Accords With Scripture; They Do Not Search For Facts As Such, But For Facts That Will Bear Out Their Doctrine. It Is Easy To See That This Mental Habit Blunts Not Only The Perception Of Truth, But The Sense Of Truthfulness, And That The Man Whose Faith Drives Him Into Fallacies Treads Close Upon The Precipice Of Falsehood.

Solomon's Proverbs, I Think, Have Omitted To Say, That As The Sore Palate Findeth Grit, So An Uneasy Consciousness Heareth Innuendos.

There Is A Great Deal Of Unmapped Country Within Us.

... One's Own Faults Are Always A Heavy Chain To Drag Through Life And One Can't Help Groaning Under The Weight Now And Then.

Every Limit Is A Beginning As Well As An Ending.

The Best Happiness Will Be To Escape The Worst Misery.

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.

Mankind Is Not Disposed To Look Narrowly Into The Conduct Of Great Victors When Their Victory Is On The Right Side.

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.

So Our Lives Glide On: The River Ends We Don't Know Where, And The Sea Begins, And Then There Is No More Jumping Ashore.

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

It Is As Useless To Fight Against The Interpretations Of Ignorance As To Whip The Fog.

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.

Love Has A Way Of Cheating Itself Consciously, Like A Child Who Plays At Solitary Hide-and-seek; It Is Pleased With Assurances That It All The While Disbelieves.

Unhappily The Habit Of Being Offensive 'without Meaning It' Leads Usually To A Way Of Making Amends Which The Injured Person Cannot But Regard As A Being Amiable Without Meaning It.

Resolve Will Melt No Rocks. But It Can Scale Them.

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

Mighty Is The Force Of Motherhood! It Transforms All Things By Its Vital Heat; It Turns Timidity Into Fierce Courage, And Dreadless Defiance Into Tremulous Submission; It Turns Thoughtlessness Into Foresight, And Yet Stills All Anxiety Into Calm Content; It Makes Selfishness Become Self-denial, And Gives Even To Hard Vanity The Glance Of Admiring Love.

That's What A Man Wants In A Wife, Mostly; He Wants To Make Sure One Fool Tells Him He's Wise.

Life Is So Complicated A Game That The Devices Of Skill Are Liable To Be Defeated At Every Turn By Air-blown Chances, Incalculable As The Descent Of Thistle-down.

You Youngsters Nowadays Think You're To Begin With Living Well And Working Easy; You've No Notion Of Running Afoot Before You Get On Horseback.

I've Had My Say Out, And I Shall Be The' Easier For't All My Life. There's No Pleasure I' Living, If You're To Be Corked Up Forever, And Only Dribble Your Mind Out By The Sly, Like A Leaky Barrel.

To Manage Men One Ought To Have A Sharp Mind In A Velvet Sheath.

That Is The Bitterest Of All,--to Wear The Yoke Of Our Own Wrong-doing.

Music Sweeps By Me As A Messenger - Carrying A Message That Is Not For Me

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