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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.

-George Eliot

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I Have Always Been

George Eliot

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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

It Always Remains True That If We Had Been Greater, Circumstance Would Have Been Less Strong Against Us.

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.

Fine Old Christmas, With The Snowy Hair And Ruddy Face, Had Done His Duty That Year In The Noblest Fashion, And Had Set Off His Rich Gifts Of Warmth And Color With All The Heightening Contrast Of Frost And Snow.

To See An Enemy Humiliated Gives A Certain Contentment, But This Is Jejune Compared With The Highly Blent Satisfaction Of Seeing Him Humiliated By Your Benevolent Action Or Concession On His Behalf. That Is The Sort Of Revenge Which Falls Into The Scale Of Virtue.

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.

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.

"heaven Help Us," Said The Old Religion; The New One, From Its Very Lack Of That Faith, Will Teach Us All The More To Help One Another.

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

There's Nothing But What's Bearable As Long As A Man Can Work.... The Square O' Four Is Sixteen, And You Must Lengthen Your Lever In Proportion To Your Weight, Is As True When A Man's Miserable As When He's Happy; And The Best O' Working Is, It Gives You A Grip Hold O' Things Outside Your Own Lot.

A Man's A Man. But When You See A King, You See The Work Of Many Thousand Men.

Nature Repairs Her Ravages,--repairs Them With Her Sunshine And With Human Labor.

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

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

If Art Does Not Enlarge Men's Sympathies, It Does Nothing Morally.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music.

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.

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 Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

The Reward Of One Duty Is The Power To Fulfill Another.

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

A Bachelor's Children Are Always Young: They're Immortal Children - Always Lisping, Waddling, Helpless, And With A Chance Of Turning Out Good.

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

It Is A Very Good Quality In A Man To Have A Trout-stream.

To Judge Wisely, We Must Know How Things Appear To The Unwise.

We Are Apt To Think It The Finest Era Of The World When America Was Beginning To Be Discovered, When A Bold Sailor, Even If He Were Wrecked, Might Alight On A New Kingdom.

Perhaps The Wind Wails So In Winter For The Summers Dead, And All Sad Sounds Are Nature's Funeral Cries For What Has Been And Is Not.

We Reap What We Sow, But Nature Has Love Over And Above That Justice, And Gives Us Shadow And Blossom And Fruit, That Spring From No Planting Of Ours.

The Light Can Be A Curtain As Well As The Darkness.

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?

To Think Of The Part One Little Woman Can Play In The Life Of A Man, So That To Renounce Her May Be A Very Good Imitation Of Heroism, And To Win Her May Be A Discipline.

It Is Hard To Believe Long Together That Anything Is "worth While," Unless There Is Some Eye To Kindle In Common With Our Own, Some Brief Word Uttered Now And Then To Imply That What Is Infinitely Precious To Us Is Precious Alike To Another Mind.

For Years After Lydgate Remembered The Impression Produced In Him By This Involuntary Appeal-this Cry From Soul To Soul, Without Other Consciousness Than Their Moving With Kindred Natures In The Same Embroiled Medium, The Same Troublous Fitfully-illuminated Life.

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

In Old Days There Were Angels Who Came And Took Men By The Hand And Led Them Away From The City Of Destruction. We See No White-winged Angels Now. But Yet Men Are Led Away From Threatening Destruction: A Hand Is Put Into Theirs, Which Leads Them Forth Gently Towards A Calm And Bright Land, So That They Look No More Backward; And The Hand May Be A Little Child's.

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

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

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.

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.

I Carry My Unwritten Poems In Cipher On My Face!

These Fellow-mortals, Every One, Must Be Accepted As They Are: You Can Neither Straighten Their Noses, Nor Brighten Their Wit, Nor Rectify Their Dispositions; And It Is These People-amongst Whom Your Life Is Passed-that It Is Needful You Should Tolerate, Pity, And Love: It Is These More Or Less Ugly, Stupid, Inconsistent People Whose Movements Of Goodness You Should Be Able To Admire-for Whom You Should Cherish All Possible Hopes, All Possible Patience.

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.

It's A Father's Duty To Give His Sons A Fine Chance.

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

That By Desiring What Is Perfectly Good, Even When We Don't Quite Know What It Is And Cannot Do What We Would, We Are Part Of The Divine Power Against Evil -- Widening The Skirts Of Light And Making The Struggle With Darkness Narrower.

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

That Golden Sky, Which Was The Doubly Blessed Symbol Of Advancing Day And Of Approaching Rest.

Play Not With Paradoxes. That Caustic Which You Handle In Order To Scorch Others May Happen To Sear Your Own Fingers And Make Them Dead To The Quality Of Things.

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

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

The Strength Of The Donkey Mind Lies In Adopting A Course Inversely As The Arguments Urged, Which, Well Considered, Requires As Great A Mental Force As The Direct Sequence.

Opposition May Become Sweet To A Man When He Has Christened It Persecution.

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?

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

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

And We Must Learn To Accommodate Ourselves To The Discovery That Some Of Those Cunningly-fashioned Instruments Called Human Souls Have Only A Very Limited Range Of Music, And Will Not Vibrate In The Least Under A Touch That Fills Others With Tremulous Rapture Or Quivering Agony.

It Is A Narrow Mind Which Cannot Look At A Subject From Various Points Of View.

History Repeats Itself.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had Had No Childhood In It.

I Think I Am Quite Wicked With Roses. I Like To Gather Them, And Smell Them Till They Have No Scent Left.

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

How Lovely The Little River Is, With Its Dark Changing Wavelets! It Seems To Me Like A Living Companion While I Wander Along The Bank, And Listen To Its Low, Placid Voice.

Better A Wrong Will Than A Wavering; Better A Steadfast Enemy Than An Uncertain Friend; Better A False Belief Than No Belief At All.

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

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

The Beginning Of Compunction Is The Beginning Of A New Life.

The Worst Of Misery Is When A Nature Framed For Noblest Things Condemns Itself In Youth To Petty Joys, And, Sore Athirst For Air, Breathes Scanty Life Gasping From Out The Shallows.

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

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.

I Like Trying To Get Pregnant. I'm Not So Sure About Childbirth.

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.

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.

We Must Not Inquire Too Curiously Into Motives. They Are Apt To Become Feeble In The Utterance: The Aroma Is Mixed With The Grosser Air. We Must Keep The Germinating Grain Away From The Light.

A Common Fallacy: To Imagine A Measure Will Be Easy Because We Have Private Motives For Desiring It.

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

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

If You Could Make A Pudding Wi' Thinking O' The Batter, It 'ud Be Easy Getting Dinner.

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

In All Private Quarrels The Duller Nature Is Triumphant By Reason Of Dullness.

Half The Sorrows Of Women Would Be Averted If They Could Repress The Speech They Know To Be Useless-nay, The Speech They Have Resolved Not To Utter.

Perfect Love Has A Breath Of Poetry Which Can Exalt The Relations Of The Least-instructed Human Beings.

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.

Doubtless A Great Anguish May Do The Work Of Years, And We May Come Out From That Baptism Of Fire With A Soul Full Of New Awe And New Pity.

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.

If We Only Look Far Enough Off For The Consequence Of Our Actions, We Can Always Find Some Point In The Combination Of Results By Which Those Actions Can Be Justified: By Adopting The Point Of View Of A Providence Who Arranges Results, Or Of A Philosopher Who Traces Them, We Shall Find It Possible To Obtain Perfect Complacency In Choosing To Do What Is Most Agreeable To Us In The Present Moment.

Loquacity With Tongue Or Pen Is Its Own Reward -- Or, Punishment.

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.

There Are Moments When Our Passions Speak And Decide For Us ... Like A Fire Kindled Within Our Being To Which Everything Else In Us Is Mere Fuel.

Power Of Generalizing Gives Men So Much The Superiority In Mistake Over The Dumb Animals.

It Is Very Hard To Say The Exact Truth, Even About Your Own Immediate Feelings – Much Harder Than To Say Something Fine About Them Which Is Not The Exact Truth.

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

Only Those Who Know The Supremacy Of The Intellectual Life──the Life Which Has A Seed Of Ennobling Thought And Purpose Within──can Understand The Grief Of One Who Falls From That Serene Activity Into The Absorbing Soul-wasting Struggle With Worldly Annoyances.

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

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

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

But Most Of Us Are Apt To Settle Within Ourselves That The Man Who Blocks Our Way Is Odious, And Not To Mind Causing Him A Little Of The Disgust Which His Personality Excites In Ourselves.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

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.

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

One Can Begin So Many Things With A New Person! - Even Begin To Be A Better Man.

Finding Yourself

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.

I Can't Bear Fishing. I Think People Look Like Fools Sitting Watching A Line Hour After Hour-or Else Throwing And Throwing, And Catching Nothing.

If We Use Common Words On A Great Occasion, They Are The More Striking, Because They Are Felt At Once To Have A Particular Meaning, Like Old Banners, Or Everyday Clothes, Hung Up In A Sacred Place.

One's Self-satisfaction Is An Untaxed Kind Of Property Which It Is Very Unpleasant To Find Deprecated.

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 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.

There Is No Human Being Who Having Both Passions And Thoughts Does Not Think In Consequences Of His Passions--does Not Find Images Rising In His Mind Which Soothe The Passion With Hope Or Sting It With Dread.

Examining The World In Order To Find Consolation Is Very Much Like Looking Carefully Over The Pages Of A Great Book In Order To Find Our Own Name . ... Whether We Find What We Want Or Not, Our Preoccupation Has Hindered Us From A True Knowledge Of The Contents.

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

Fairy Folk A-listening Hear The Seed Sprout In The Spring, And For Music To Their Dance Hear The Hedgerows Wake From Trance, Sap That Trembles Into Buds Sending Little Rhythmic Floods Of Fairy Sound In Fairy Ears. Thus All Beauty That Appears Has Birth As Sound To Finer Sense And Lighter-clad Intelligence.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

Trouble's Made Us Kin.

Little Children Are Still The Symbol Of The Eternal Marriage Between Love And Duty.

A Suppressed Resolve Will Betray Itself In The Eyes.

I Always Think The Flowers Can See Us, And Know What We Are Thinking About.

Even Success Needs Its Consolations.

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

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.

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.

There's Folks 'ud Hold A Sieve Under The Pump And Expect To Carry Away The Water.

Anger And Jealousy Can No More Bear To Lose Sight Of Their Objects Than Love.

Some People Are Born To Make Life Pretty, And Others To Grumble That It Is Not Pretty Enough.

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

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

Thought Has Joys Apart, Even In Blackest Woe, And Seizing Some Fine Thread Of Verity Knows Momentary Godhead.

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?

My Childhood Was Full Of Deep Sorrows - Colic, Whooping-cough, Dread Of Ghosts, Hell, Satan, And A Deity In The Sky Who Was Angry When I Ate Too Much Plumcake.

The Sense Of An Entailed Disadvantage - The Deformed Foot Doubtfully Hidden By The Shoe, Makes A Restlessly Active Spiritual Yeast, And Easily Turns A Self-centered, Unloving Nature Into An Ishmaelite.

Women Should Be Protected From Anyone's Exercise Of Unrighteous Power... But Then, So Should Every Other Living Creature.

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

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 No Use Filling Your Pocket With Money If You Have Got A Hole In The Corner.

Childhood Is Only The Beautiful And Happy Time In Contemplation And Retrospect: To The Child It Is Full Of Deep Sorrows, The Meaning Of Which Is Unknown.

To Know Intense Joy Without A Strong Bodily Frame, One Must Have An Enthusiastic Soul.

The Usual Attitude Of Christians Towards Jews Is - I Hardly Know Whether To Say More Impious Or More Stupid, When Viewed In The Light Of Their Professed Principles. ... They Hardly Know Christ Was A Jew. And I Find Men, Educated, Supposing That Christ Spoke Greek. To My Feeling, This Deadness To The History Which Has Prepared Half Our World For Us, This Inability To Find Interest In Any Form Of Life That Is Not Clad In The Same Coat-tails And Flounces As Our Own, Lies Very Close To The Worst Kind Of Irreligion.

In Every Parting There Is An Image Of Death.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Is Not This A True Autumn Day? Just The Still Melancholy That I Love - That Makes Life And Nature Harmonise. The Birds Are Consulting About Their Migrations, The Trees Are Putting On The Hectic Or The Pallid Hues Of Decay, And Begin To Strew The Ground, That One's Very Footsteps May Not Disturb The Repose Of Earth And Air, While They Give Us A Scent That Is A Perfect Anodyne To The Restless Spirit. Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It, And If I Were A Bird I Would Fly About The Earth Seeking The Successive Autumns.

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.

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.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life. Everything Else One Can Turn And Turn About, And Make Old Look Like New; But There's No Coaxing Boots And Shoes To Look Better Than They Are.

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

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.

Jews Are Not Fit For Heaven, But On Earth They Are Most Useful.

Men And Women Make Sad Mistakes About Their Own Symptoms, Taking Their Vague Uneasy Longings, Sometimes For Genius, Sometimes For Religion, And Oftener Still For A Mighty Love.

The Darkest Night That Ever Fell Upon The Earth Never Hid The Light, Never Put Out The Stars. It Only Made The Stars More Keenly, Kindly Glancing, As If In Protest Against The Darkness.

People Who Write Finely Must Not Expect To Be Left In Repose; They Will Be Molested With Thanks, At Least.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

Those Who Trust Us Educate Us.

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.

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

It Is Not Ignoble To Feel That The Fuller Life Which A Sad Experience Has Brought Us Is Worth Our Personal Share Of Pain. The Growth Of Higher Feeling Within Us Is Like The Growth Of Faculty, Bringing With It A Sense Of Added Strength. We Can No More Wish To Return To A Narrower Sympathy Than Painters Or Musicians Can Wish To Return To Their Cruder Manner, Or Philosophers To Their Less Complete Formulas.

Husbands Are An Inferior Class Of Men, Who Require Keeping In Order.

Love Is Such A Simple Thing When We Have Only One-and-twenty Summers And A Sweet Girl Of Seventeen Trembles Under Our Glance, As If She Were A Bud First Opening Her Heart With Wondering Rapture To The Morning. Such Young Unfurrowed Souls Roll To Meet Each Other Like Two Velvet Peaches That Touch Softly And Are At Rest; They Mingle As Easily As Two Brooklets That Ask For Nothing But To Entwine Themselves And Ripple With Ever-interlacing Curves In The Leafiest Hiding-places.

So To Live Is Heaven; To Make Undying Music In The World.

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

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.

But Is It What We Love, Or How We Love, That Makes True Good?

This Is A Puzzling World, And Old Harry's Got A Finger In It.

Worldly Faces Never Look So Worldly As At A Funeral.

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.

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.

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

Surely There Was Something Taught Her By This Experience Of Great Need; And She Must Be Learning A Secret Of Human Tenderness And Long-suffering, That The Less Erring Could Hardly Know?

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

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

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.

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

Many An Irritating Fault, Many An Unlovely Oddity, Has Come Of A Hard Sorrow.

Genius ... Is Necessarily Intolerant Of Fetters.

You Must Learn To Deal With The Odd And Even In Life, As Well As In Figures.

Folks As Have No Mind To Be O' Use Have Allays The Luck To Be Out O' The Road When There's Anything To Be Done.

We Hand Folks Over To God's Mercy, And Show None Ourselves.

Of A Truth, Knowledge Is Power, But It Is A Power Reined By Scruple, Having A Conscience Of What Must Be And What May Be. . . .

Knowledge Is Power

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.

A Supreme Love, A Motive That Gives A Sublime Rhythm To A Woman's Life, And Exalts Habit Into Partnership With The Soul's Highest Needs, Is Not To Be Had Where And How She Wills.

Man Finds His Pathways: At First They Were Foot-tracks, As Those Of The Beast In The Wilderness; Now They Are Swift And Invisible: His Thought Dives Through The Ocean, And His Wishes Thread The Air: Has He Found All The Pathways Yet? What Reaches Him, Stays With Him, Rules Him: He Must Accept It, Not Knowing Its Pathway.

We All Remember Epochs In Our Experience When Some Dear Expectation Dies, Or Some New Motive Is Born.

That Farewell Kiss Which Resembles Greeting, That Last Glance Of Love Which Becomes The Sharpest Pang Of Sorrow.

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

You Should Read History And Look At Ostracism, Persecution, Martyrdom, And That Kind Of Thing. They Always Happen To The Best Men, You Know.

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

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.

I Am Not Imposed Upon By Fine Words; I Can See What Actions Mean.

These Gems Have Life In Them: Their Colors Speak, Say What Words Fail Of.

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