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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.

-George Eliot

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I Could Not Without

George Eliot

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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.

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Don't Let Us Rejoice In Punishment, Even When The Hand Of God Alone Inflicts It. The Best Of Us Are But Poor Wretches, Just Saved From Shipwreck. Can We Feel Anything But Awe And Pity When We See A Fellow-passenger Swallowed By The Waves?

Might, Could, Would - They Are Contemptible Auxiliaries.

Positive Thinking

If I Have Read Religious History Aright, Faith, Hope, And Charity Have Not Always Been Found In A Direct Ratio With A Sensibility To The Three Concords; And It Is Possible, Thank Heaven! To Have Very Erroneous Theories And Very Sublime Feelings.

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!

That Sort Of Reputation Which Precedes Performance [is] Often The Larger Part Of A Man's Fame.

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. . . .

Hatred Is Like Fire, It Makes Even Light Rubbish Deadly.

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

What A Wretched Lot Of Old Shrivelled Creatures We Shall Be By-and-by. Never Mind - The Uglier We Get In The Eyes Of Others, The Lovelier We Shall Be To Each Other; That Has Always Been My Firm Faith About Friendship.

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.

But What We Strive To Gratify, Though We May Call It A Distant Hope, Is An Immediate Desire; The Future Estate For Which Men Drudge Up City Alleys Exists Already In Their Imagination And Love.

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

A Perverted Moral Judgment Belongs To The Dogmatic System.

In All Failures, The Beginning Is Certainly The Half Of The Whole.

I Have The Conviction That Excessive Literary Production Is A Social Offence.

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.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music.

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.

Hurt, He'll Never Be Hurt--he's Made To Hurt Other People.

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.

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.

It Is Always Chilling, In Friendly Intercourse, To Say You Have No Opinion To Give.

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

A Girl Of Eighteen Imagines The Feelings Behind The Face That Has Moved Her With Its Sympathetic Youth As Easily As Primitive People Imagined The Humors Of The Gods In Fair Weather. What Is She To Believe In If Not In This Vision Woven From Within?

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

... 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Am Not Resigned: I Am Not Sure Life Is Long Enough To Learn That Lesson.

A Good Horse Makes Short Miles.

Trouble Always Seems Heavier When It Is Only One's Thought And Not One's Bodily Activity That Is Employed About It.

If People Will Be Censors, Let Them Weigh Their Words. I Mean That The Words Were Unfair By That Disproportionateness Of The Condemnation, Which Everybody With Some Conscience Must Feel To Be One Of The Great Difficulties In Denouncing A Particular Person. Every Unpleasant Dog Is Only One Of Many, But We Kick Him Because He Comes In Our Way, And There Is Always Some Want Of Distributive Justice In The Kicking.

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.

There Is No General Doctrine Which Is Not Capable Of Eating Out Our Morality If Unchecked By The Deep-seated Habit Of Direct Fellow-feeling With Individual Fellow-men.

Memory, When Duly Impregnated With Ascertained Facts, Is Sometimes Surprisingly Fertile.

... Indefinite Visions Of Ambition Are Weak Against The Ease Of Doing What Is Habitual Or Beguilingly Agreeable.

Hold Up Your Head! You Were Not Made For Failure, You Were Made For Victory. Go Forward With A Joyful Confidence.

Hopes Have Precarious Life. They Are Oft Blighted, Withered, Snapped Sheer Off In Vigorous Growth And Turned To Rottenness.

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

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

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

I Can't Abide To See Men Throw Away Their Tools I' That Way, The Minute The Clock Begins To Strike, As If They Took No Pleasure I' Their Work, And Was Afraid O' Doing A Stroke Too Much.... I Hate To See A Man's Arms Drop Down As If He Was Shot, Before The Clock's Fairly Struck, Just As If He'd Never A Bit O' Pride And Delight In's Work. The Very Grindstone 'ull Go On Turning A Bit After You Loose 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.

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

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.

But Human Experience Is Usually Paradoxical, That Means Incongruous With The Phrases Of Current Talk Or Even Current Philosophy.

Things Don't Happen Because They're Bad Or Good, Else All Eggs Would Be Addled Or None At All, And At The Most It Is But Six To The Dozen. There's Good Chances And Bad Chances, And Nobody's Luck Is Pulled Only By One String.

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.

Those Who Trust Us Educate Us.

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?

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

Those Who Have Been Indulged By Fortune And Have Always Thought Of Calamity As What Happens To Others, Feel A Blind Incredulous Rage At The Reversal Of Their Lot, And Half Believe That Their Wild Cries Will Alter The Course Of The Storm.

It Had Already Occurred To Him That Books Were Stuff, And That Life Was Stupid.

What Mortal Is There Of Us, Who Would Find His Satisfaction Enhanced By An Opportunity Of Comparing The Picture He Presents To Himself Of His Doings, With The Picture They Make On The Mental Retina Of His Neighbours? We Are Poor Plants Buoyed Up By The Air-vessels Of Our Own Conceit.

Our Sense Of Duty Must Often Wait For Some Work Which Shall Take The Place Of Dilettanteism [sic] And Make Us Feel That The Quality Of Our Action Is Not A Matter Of Indifference.

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.

A Difference Of Taste In Jokes Is A Great Strain On The Affections.

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.

Keep True, Never Be Ashamed Of Doing Right.

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

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.

The Mysterious Complexity Of Our Life Is Not To Be Embraced By Maxims ... To Lace Ourselves Up In Formulas Of That Sort Is To Repress All The Divine Promptings And Inspirations That Spring From Growing Insight And Sympathy.

Unwonted Circumstances May Make Us All Rather Unlike Ourselves: There Are Conditions Under Which The Most Majestic Person Is Obliged To Sneeze, And Our Emotions Are Liable To Be Acted On In The Same Incongruous Manner.

Perhaps Nothing Ud Be A Lesson To Us If It Didn't Come Too Late. It's Well We Should Feel As Life's A Reckoning We Can't Make Twice Over; There's No Real Making Amends In This World, Any More Nor You Can Mend A Wrong Subtraction By Doing Your Addition Right.

Eros Has Degenerated; He Began By Introducing Order And Harmony, And Now He Brings Back Chaos.

What Is Your Religion? I Mean-not What You Know About Religion But The Belief That Helps You Most?

I've Been Turning It Over In After-dinner Speeches, But It Looks Awkward-it's Not What People Are Used To-it Wants A Good Deal Of Latin To Make It Go Down.

People Glorify All Sorts Of Bravery Except The Bravery They Might Show On Behalf Of Their Nearest Neighbors.

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

I Wish Always To Be Quoted As George Eliot.

But If Maggie Had Been That Young Lady, You Would Probably Have Known Nothing About Her: Her Life Would Have Had So Few Vicissitudes That It Could Hardly Have Been Written; For The Happiest Women, Like The Happiest Nations, Have No History.

There Is Much Pain That Is Quite Noiseless; And Vibrations That Make Human Agonies Are Often A Mere Whisper In The Roar Of Hurrying Existence.

To The Old, Sorrow Is Sorrow; To The Young, It Is Despair.

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.

The World Is Full Of Hopeful Analogies And Handsome, Dubious Eggs, Called Possibilities.

When One Wanted One's Interests Looking After Whatever The Cost, It Was Not So Well For A Lawyer To Be Over Honest, Else He Might Not Be Up To Other People's Tricks.

I've Always Felt That Your Belongings Have Never Been On A Level With You.

There's Folks As Make Bad Butter And Trusten To The Salt T' Hide It.

When I Married Humphrey I Made Up My Mind To Like Sermons, And I Set Out By Liking The End Very Much. That Soon Spread To The Middle And The Beginning, Because I Couldn't Have The End Without Them.

The Beginning Of Hardship Is Like The First Taste Of Bitter Food--it Seems For A Moment Unbearable; Yet, If There Is Nothing Else To Satisfy Our Hunger, We Take Another Bite And Find It Possible To Go On.

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.

Nature Has The Deep Cunning Which Hides Itself Under The Appearance Of Openness, So That Simple People Think They Can See Through Her Quite Well, And All The While She Is Secretly Preparing A Refutation Of Their Confident Prophecies.

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.

Obligation May Be Stretched Till It Is No Better Than A Brand Of Slavery Stamped On Us When We Were Too Young To Know Its Meaning.

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.

We Are Overhasty To Speak As If God Did Not Manifest Himself By Our Silent Feeling, And Make His Love Felt Through Ours.

What Moments Of Despair That Life Would Ever Be Made Precious To Me By The Consciousness That I Lived To Some Good Purpose! It Was That Sort Of Despair That Sucked Away The Sap Of Half The Hours Which Might Have Been Filled By Energetic Youthful Activity: And The Same Demon Tries To Get Hold Of Me Again Whenever An Old Work Is Dismissed And A New One Is Being Meditated.

The Sublime Delight Of Truthful Speech To One Who Has The Great Gift Of Uttering It, Will Make Itself Felt Even Through The Pangs Of Sorrow.

In Poor Rosamond's Mind There Was Not Room Enough For Luxuries To Look Small In.

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.

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

Where Women Love Each Other, Men Learn To Smother Their Mutual Dislike.

... 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.

I Cherish My Childish Loves--the Memory Of That Warm Little Nest Where My Affections Were Fledged.

Among The Blessings Of Love There Is Hardly One More Exquisite Than The Sense That In Uniting The Beloved Life To Ours We Can Watch Over Its Happiness, Bring Comfort Where Hardship Was, And Over Memories Of Privation And Suffering Open The Sweetest Fountains Of Joy.

... It Is One Thing To Like Defiance, And Another Thing To Like Its Consequences.

Life Is Like Our Game At Whist ... I Don't Enjoy The Game Much, But I Like To Play My Cards Well, And See What Will Be The End Of It.

People Are So Ridiculous With Their Illusions, Carrying Their Fool's Caps Unawares, Thinking Their Own Lies Opaque While Everybody Else's Are Transparent, Making Themselves Exceptions To Everything, As If When All The World Looked Yellow Under A Lamp They Alone Are Rosy.

The Pride Of The Body Is A Barrier Against The Gifts That Purify The Soul.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

Fatally Powerful As Religious Systems Have Been, Human Nature Is Stronger And Wider, And Though Dogmas May Hamper They Cannot Absolutely Repress Its Growth.

The Strongest Principle Of Growth Lies In The Human Choice.

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

It Is Impossible, To Me At Least, To Be Poetical In Cold Weather.

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!

Men And Women Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

A Medical Man Likes To Make Psychological Observations, And Sometimes In The Pursuit Of Such Studies Is Too Easily Tempted Into Momentous Prophecy Which Life And Death Easily Set At Nought.

We Are Contented With Our Day When We Have Been Able To Bear Our Grief In Silence, And Act As If We Were Not Suffering.

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

Impatient People, According To Bacon, Are Like The Bees, And Kill Themselves In Stinging Others.

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.

Ingenious Philosophers Tell You, Perhaps, That The Great Work Of The Steam-engine Is To Create Leisure For Mankind. Do Not Believe Them; It Only Creates A Vacuum For Eager Thought To Rush In.

We Have All Got To Exert Ourselves A Little To Keep Sane, And Call Things By The Same Names As Other People Call Them By.

Doesn't This Quote Just Call Up Feelings Of Comfort And Home? Comparing Friendship To The Nest A Bird Lives In And Builds With Loving Determination Reminds Me That Having A Solid Relationship Takes Work And Dedication. And Yet, When You Succeed In Crafting A Friendship, You Can Rest In The Comfort It Provides.

There Is A Mercy Which Is Weakness, And Even Treason Against The Common Good.

When We Are Dead : It Is The Living Only Who Cannot Be Forgiven The Living Only From Whom Men's Indulgence And Reverence Are Held Off, Like The Rain By The Hard East Wind .

A Friend Is One To Whom One May Pour Out The Contents Of One's Heart, Chaff And Grain Together, Knowing That Gentle Hands Will Take And Sift It, Keep What Is Worth Keeping, And With A Breath Of Kindness, Blow The Rest Away.

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.

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.

Her Heart Went Out To Him With A Stronger Movement Than Ever, At The Thought That People Would Blame Him. Maggie Hated Blame; She Had Been Blamed Her Whole Life, And Nothing Had Come Of It But Evil Tempers.

... It Is Seldom A Medical Man Has True Religious Views--there Is Too Much Pride Of Intellect.

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.

An Ingenious Web Of Probabilities Is The Surest Screen A Wise Man Can Place Between Himself And The Truth.

Excellence Encourages One About Life Generally; It Shows The Spiritual Wealth Of The World.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

Often The Soul Is Ripened Into Fuller Goodness While Age Has Spread An Ugly Film, So That Mere Glances Can Never Divine The Preciousness Of The Fruit.

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

A Mother's Yearning Feels The Presence Of The Cherished Child Even In The Degraded Man.

You Know I Have Duties──we Both Have Duties──before Which Feeling Must Be Sacrificed.

There Are Answers Which, In Turning Away Wrath, Only Send It To The Other End Of The Room.

There Are Robberies That Leave Man Or Woman Forever Beggared Of Peace And Joy, Yet Kept Secret By The Sufferer.

There's Folks 'ud Stand On Their Heads And Then Say The Fault Was I' Their Boots.

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.

It Will Never Rain Roses: When We Want To Have More Roses We Must Plant More Trees.

Consequences Are Unpitying.

There Is Heroism Even In The Circles Of Hell For Fellow-sinners Who Cling To Each Other In The Fiery Whirlwind And Never Recriminate.

But Certain Winds Will Make Men's Temper Bad.

The Bow Always Strung ... Will Not Do.

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?

And Dorothea..she Had No Dreams Of Being Praised Above Other Women. Feeling That There Was Always Something Better Which She Might Have Done If She Had Only Been Better And Known Better, Her Full Nature Spent Itself In Deeds Which Left No Great Name On The Earth, But The Effect Of Her Being On Those Around Her Was Incalculable. For The Growing Good Of The World Is Partly Dependent On Unhistoric Acts And On All Those Dorotheas Who Life Faithfully Their Hidden Lives And Rest In Unvisited Tombs. Middlemarch

But She Took Her Husband's Jokes And Joviality As Patiently As Everything Else, Considering That "men Would Be So", And Viewing The Stronger Sex In The Light Of Animals Whom It Had Pleased Heaven To Make Naturally Troublesome, Like Bulls And Turkey-cocks.

More Helpful Than All Wisdom Is One Draught Of Simple Human Pity That Will Not Forsake Us.

I Care Only To Know, If Possible, The Lasting Meaning That Lies In All Religious Doctrine From The Beginning Till Now.

Our Consciousness Rarely Registers The Beginning Of A Growth Within Us Any More Than Without Us; There Have Been Many Circulation Of The Sap Before We Detect The Smallest Sign Of The Bud.

The Best Travel Is That Which One Can Take By One's Own Fireside. In Memory Or Imagination.

Plain Women He Regarded As He Did The Other Severe Facts Of Life, To Be Faced With Philosophy And Investigated By Science.

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.

What Loneliness Is More Lonely Than Distrust?

You Know Nothing About Hope, That Immortal, Delicious Maiden Forever Courted Forever Propitious, Whom Fools Have Called Deceitful, As If It Were Hope That Carried The Cup Of Disappointment, Whereas It Is Her Deadly Enemy, Certainty, Whom She Only Es

Speech Is Often Barren; But Silence Also Does Not Necessarily Brood Over A Full Nest.

Life Seems To Go On Without Effort When I Am Filled With Music.

A Child, More Than All Other Gifts That Earth Can Offer To Declining Man, Brings Hope With It, And Forward-looking Thoughts." —wordsworth.

Brothers Are So Unpleasant.

She Was No Longer Wrestling With The Grief, But Could Sit Down With It As A Lasting Companion And Make It A Sharer In Her Thoughts.

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.

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.

Life Is Too Precious To Be Spent In This Weaving And Unweaving Of False Impressions, And It Is Better To Live Quietly Under Some Degree Of Misrepresentation Than To Attempt To Remove It By The Uncertain Process Of Letter-writing.

The Tale Of The Divine Pity Was Never Yet Believed From Lips That Were Not Felt To Be Moved By Human Pity.

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.

Surely It Is Not True Blessedness To Be Free Of Sorrow While There Is Sorrow And Sin In The World. Sorrow Is A Part Of Love And Love Does Not Seek To Throw It Off.

In Spite Of His Practical Ability, Some Of His Experience Had Petrified Into Maxims And Quotations.

All Meanings, We Know, Depend On The Key Of Interpretation.

There Is Nothing That Will Kill A Man So Soon As Having Nobody To Find Fault With But Himself.

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

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

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.

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

Subtract From The New Testament The Miraculous And Highly Impossible, And What Will Be The Remainder?

It Is A Fact Capable Of Amiable Interpretation That Ladies Are Not The Worst Disposed Towards A New Acquaintance Of Their Own Sex, Because She Has Points Of Inferiority.

Every Woman Is Supposed To Have The Same Set Of Motives, Or Else To Be A Monster.

There Are Men Whose Presence Infuses Trust And Reverence.

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.

Marriage Must Be A Relation Either Of Sympathy Or Of Conquest.

Justice Is Like The Kingdom Of God--it Is Not Without Us As A Fact, It Is Within Us As A Great Yearning.

Men Outlive Their Love, But They Don’t Outlive The Consequences Of Their Recklessness.

Plainness Has Its Peculiar Temptations And Vices Quite As Much As Beauty.

Beautiful Women

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?

A Man Vows, And Yet Will Not East Away The Means Of Breaking His Vow. Is It That He Distinctly Means To Break It? Not At All; But The Desires Which Tend To Break It Are At Work In Him Dimly, And Make Their Way Into His Imagination, And Relax His Muscles In The Very Moments When He Is Telling Himself Over Again The Reasons For His Vow.

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

If You Are To Rule Men, You Must Rule Them Through Their Own Ideas.

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

Lord! Thou Art With Thy People Still; They See Thee In The Night-watches, And Their Hearts Burn Within Them As Thou Talkest With Them By The Way. And Thou Art Near To Those That Have Not Known Thee; Open Their Eyes That They May See Thee--see Thee Weeping Over Them, And Saying, "ye Will Not Come Unto Me That Ye Might Have Life"--see Thee Hanging On The Cross And Saying, "father, Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do"--see Thee As Thou Wilt Come Again In Thy Glory To Judge Them At The Last. Amen.

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.

But Very Little Achievement Is Required In Order To Pity Another Man's Shortcomings.

But Indefinite Visions Of Ambition Are Weak Against The Ease Of Doing What Is Habitual Or Beguilingly Agreeable; And We All Know The Difficulty Of Carrying Out A Resolve When We Secretly Long That It May Turn Out To Be Unnecessary. In Such States Of Mind The Most Incredulous Person Has A Private Leaning Towards Miracle: Impossible To Conceive How Our Wish Could Be Fulfilled, Still - Very Wonderful Things Have Happened!

There Is A Sort Of Human Paste That When It Comes Near The Fire Of Enthusiasm Is Only Baked Into Harder Shape.

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 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.

I'll Tell You What's The Greatest Power Under Heaven, And That Is Public Opinion-the Ruling Belief In Society About What Is Right And What Is Wrong, What Is Honourable And What Is Shameful. That's The Steam That Is To Work The Engines.

Where Jack Isn't Safe, Tom's In Danger.

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.

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Carroll Quigley

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