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I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Was A Young Un, As Religion's Something Else Besides Notions. It Isn't Notions Sets People Doing The Right Things--it's Feelings. It's The Same With The Notions In Religion As It Is With Math'matics--a Man May Be Able To Work Problems Straight Off In's Head As He Sits By The Fire And Smokes His Pipe; But If He Has To Make A Machine Or A Building, He Must Have A Will And A Resolution, And Love Something Else Better Than His Own Ease.

-George Eliot

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I've Seen Pretty Clear,

George Eliot

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I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Was A Young Un, As Religion's Something Else Besides Notions. It Isn't Notions Sets People Doing The Right Things--it's Feelings. It's The Same With The Notions In Religion As It Is With Math'matics--a Man May Be Able To Work Problems Straight Off In's Head As He Sits By The Fire And Smokes His Pipe; But If He Has To Make A Machine Or A Building, He Must Have A Will And A Resolution, And Love Something Else Better Than His Own Ease.

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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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

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

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

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.

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. . . .

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?

Family Likeness Has Often A Deep Sadness In It.

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

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

The Desire To Conquer Is Itself A Sort Of Subjection.

To My Thinking, It Is More Pitiable To Bore Than To Be Bored.

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 Matter Whether Failure Came A Thousand Different Times, For One Brief Moment Of Success, Life Rang Its Golden Chimes.

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

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

"abroad," That Large Home Of Ruined Reputations.

Death Is The King Of This World: 'tis His Park Where He Breeds Life To Feed Him. Cries Of Pain Are Music For His Banquet.

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.

There Is No Sort Of Wrong Deed Of Which A Man Can Bear The Punishment Alone; You Can't Isolate Yourself And Say That The Evil That Is In You Shall Not Spread. Men's Lives Are As Thoroughly Blended With Each Other As The Air They Breathe; Evil Spreads As Necessarily As Disease.

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.

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.

Them As Ha' Never Had A Cushion Don't Miss It.

She Was No Longer Struggling Against The Perception Of Facts, But Adjusting Herself To Their Clearest Perception.

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

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.

Time, Like Money, Is Measured By Our Needs.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

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

It Is Necessary To Me, Not Simply To Be But To Utter, And I Require Utterance Of My Friends.

Every Year Strips Us Of At Least One Vain Expectation, And Teaches Us To Reckon Some Solid Good In Its Stead.

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

But That Intimacy Of Mutual Embarrassment, In Which Each Feels That The Other Is Feeling Something, Having Once Existed, Its Effect Is Not To Be Done Away With.

May Every Soul That Touches Mine - Be It The Slightest Contact - Get There From Some Good; Some Little Grace; One Kindly Thought; One Aspiration Yet Unfelt; One Bit Of Courage For The Darkening Sky; One Gleam Of Faith To Brave The Thickening Ills Of Life; One Glimpse Of Brighter Skies Beyond The Gathering Mists - To Make This Life Worthwhile.

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

I Carry My Unwritten Poems In Cipher On My Face!

... Happy Husbands And Wives Can Hear Each Other Say The Same Thing Over And Over Again Without Being Tired.

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

Your Dunce Who Can't Do His Sums Always Has A Taste For The Infinite.

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.

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.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

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.

The Moment Of Finding A Fellow-creature Is Often As Full Of Mingled Doubt And Exultation, As The Moment Of Finding An Idea.

There Are Few Of Us That Are Not Rather Ashamed Of Our Sins And Follies As We Look Out On The Blessed Morning Sunlight, Which Comes To Us Like A Bright-winged Angel Beckoning Us To Quit The Old Path Of Vanity That Stretches Its Dreary Length Behind Us.

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

Hear Everything And Judge For Yourself

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.

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.

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

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

To Act With Doubleness Towards A Man Whose Own Conduct Was Double, Was So Near An Approach To Virtue That It Deserved To Be Called By No Meaner Name Than Diplomacy.

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

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

There Is Nothing I Should Care More To Do, If It Were Possible, Than To Rouse The Imagination Of Men And Women To A Vision Of Human Claims In Those Races Of Their Fellow-men Who Most Differ From Them In Customs And Beliefs.

But Let The Wise Be Warned Against Too Great Readiness To Explanation: It Multiplies The Sources Of Mistake, Lengthening The Sum For Reckoners Sure To Go Wrong.

For What We Call Illusions Are Often, In Truth, A Wider Vision Of Past And Present Realities - A Willing Movement Of A Man's Soul With The Larger Sweep Of The World's Forces - A Movement Towards A More Assured End Than The Chances Of A Single Life.

In High Vengeance There Is Noble Scorn.

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.

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.

Melodies Die Out, Like The Pipe Of Pan, With The Ears That Love Them And Listen For Them.

Iteration, Like Friction, Is Likely To Generate Heat Instead Of Progress.

Starting A Long Way Off The True Point, And Proceeding By Loops And Zigzags , We Now And Then Arrive Just Where We Ought To Be.

Will Not A Tiny Speck Very Close To Our Vision Blot Out The Glory Of The World, And Leave Only A Margin By Which We See The Blot? I Know No Speck So Troublesome As Self.

It's Well Known There's Always Two Sides, If No More.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had No Childhood In It If It Were Not The Earth Where The Same Flowers Come Up Again Every Spring That We Used To Gather With Our Tiny Fingers As We Sat Lisping To Ourselves On The Grass . . .

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

Joy Is The Best Of Wine.

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

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.

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

Receptiveness Is A Rare And Massive Power, Like Fortitude.

The Higher Life Begins For Us ... When We Renounce Our Own Will To Bow Before A Divine Law.

The Stars Are Golden Fruit Upon A Tree All Out Of Reach.

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.

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.

I Used To Come From The Village With All That Dirt And Coarse Ugliness Like A Pain Within Me, And The Simpering Pictures In The Drawing-room Seemed To Me Like A Wicked Attempt To Find Delight In What Is False, While We Don't Mind How Hard The Truth Is For The Neighbors Outside Our Walls. I Think We Have No Right To Come Forward And Urge Wider Changes For Good, Until We Have Tried To Alter The Evils Which Lie Under Our Own Hands.

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.

Joy And Sorrow Are Both My Perpetual Companions, But The Joy Is Called Past And The Sorrow Present.

When Our Life Is A Continuous Trial, The Moments Of Respite Seem Only To Substitute The Heaviness Of Dread For The Heaviness Of Actual Suffering; The Curtain Of Cloud Seems Parted An Instant Only That We May Measure All Its Horror As It Hangs Low, Black, And Imminent, In Contrast With The Transient Brightness; The Waterdrops That Visit The Parched Lips In The Desert Bear With Them Only The Keen Imagination Of Thirst.

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.

In Rome It Seems As If There Were So Many Things Which Are More Wanted In The World Than Pictures.

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

Sweet Truth Is A Queen Proud And Mighty-- Her Throne Is In Heaven Above.

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

There Are Men Whose Presence Infuses Trust And Reverence.

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

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.

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?

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends.

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.

How Will You Find Good? It Is Not A Thing Of Choice; It Is A River That Flows From The Foot Of The Invisible Throne And Flows By The Path Of Obedience.

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

As They Who Make Good Luck A God Count All Unlucky Men.

We Judge Other According To Results; How Else?--not Knowing The Process By Which Results Are Arrived At.

A Foreman, If He's Got A Conscience, And Delights In His Work, Will Do His Business As Well As If He Was A Partner. I Wouldn't Give A Penny For A Man As 'ud Drive A Nail In Slack Because He Didn't Get Extra Pay For It.

What Deep And Worthy Love Is So, Whether Of Woman Or Child, Or Art Or Music. Our Caresses, Our Tender Words, Our Still Rapture Under The Influence Of Autumn Sunsets, Or Pillared Vistas, Or Calm Majestic Statues, Or Beethoven Symphonies All Bring With Them The Consciousness That They Are Mere Waves And Ripples In An Unfathomable Ocean Of Love And Beauty; Our Emotion In Its Keenest Moment Passes From Expression Into Silence, Our Love At Its Highest Flood Rushes Beyond Its Object And Loses Itself In The Sense Of Divine Mystery.

And Certainly, The Mistakes That We Male And Female Mortals Make When We Have Our Own Way Might Fairly Raise Some Wonder That We Are So Fond Of It.

Marriage, Which Has Been The Bourne Of So Many Narratives, Is Still A Great Beginning, As It Was To Adam And Eve, Who Kept Their Honey-moon In Eden, But Had Their First Little One Among The Thorns And Thistles Of The Wilderness. It Is Still The Beginning Of The Home Epic - The Gradual Conquest Or Irremediable Loss Of That Complete Union Which Make The Advancing Years A Climax, And Age The Harvest Of Sweet Memories In Common.

Life Is Very Difficult. It Seems Right To Me Sometimes That We Should Follow Our Strongest Feelings; But Then Such Feelings Continually Come Across The Ties That All Our Former Life Has Made For Us,--the Ties That Have Made Others Dependent On Us,--and Would Cut Them In Two.

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

It Is Better - It Shall Be Better With Me Because I Have Known You.

Breed Is Stronger Than Pasture.

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

The Troublesome Ones In A Family Are Usually Either The Wits Or The Idiots.

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

Here Undoubtedly Lies The Chief Poetic Energy: - In The Force Of Imagination That Pierces Or Exalts The Solid Fact, Instead Of Floating Among Cloud-pictures.

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

There Is Hardly Any Contact More Depressing To A Young Ardent Creature Than That Of A Mind In Which Years Full Of Knowledge Seem To Have Issued In A Blank Absence Of Interest Or Sympathy.

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.

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

After All, The True Seeing Is Within.

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

... It Is One Of The Gains Of Advancing Age That The Good Of Young Creatures Becomes A More Definite Intense Joy To Us. With That Renunciation For Ourselves Which Age Inevitably Brings, We Get More Freedom Of Soul To Enter Into The Life Of Others; What We Can Never Learn They Will Know, And The Gladness Which Is A Departed Sunlight To Us Is Rising With The Strength Of Morning To Them.

Speech May Be Barren; But It Is Ridiculous To Suppose That Silence Is Always Brooding On A Nestful Of Eggs.

Explain! Tell A Man To Explain How He Dropped Into Hell! Explain My Preference! I Never Had A Preference For Her, Any More Than I Have A Preference For Breathing. No Other Woman Exists By The Side Of Her. I Would Rather Touch Her Hand If It Were Dead, Than I Would Touch Any Other Woman's Living.

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.

I Think What We Call The Dullness Of Things Is A Disease In Ourselves. Else How Could Anyone Find An Intense Interest In Life? And Many Do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is An Uneasy Lot At Best, To Be What We Call Highly Taught And Yet Not To Enjoy: To Be Present At This Great Spectacle Of Life And Never To Be Liberated From A Small Hungry Shivering Self.

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

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

The Right Word Is Always A Power, And Communicates Its Definiteness To Our Action.

If A Woman's Young And Pretty, I Think You Can See Her Good Looks All The Better For Her Being Plainly Dressed.

To Have In General But Little Feeling, Seems To Be The Only Security Against Feeling Too Much On Any Particular Occasion.

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.

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.

To Most Mortals There Is A Stupidity Which Is Unendurable And A Stupidity Which Is Altogether Acceptable - Else, Indeed, What Would Become Of Social Bonds?

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.

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.

Keep True, Never Be Ashamed Of Doing Right.

When We Get To Wishing A Great Deal For Ourselves, Whatever We Get Soon Turns Into Mere Limitation And Exclusion.

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.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

When We Are Suddenly Released From An Acute Absorbing Bodily Pain, Our Heart And Senses Leap Out In New Freedom; We Think Even The Noise Of Streets Harmonious, And Are Ready To Hug The Tradesman Who Is Wrapping Up Our Change.

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?

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.

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

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

It Is In These Acts Called Trivialities That The Seeds Of Joy Are Forever Wasted, Until Men And Women Look Round With Haggard Faces At The Devastation Their Own Waste Has Made, And Say, The Earth Bears No Harvest Of Sweetness - Calling Their Denial Knowledge.

Where You Have Friends You Should Not Go To Inns.

Tis A Petty Kind Of Fame At Best, That Comes Of Making Violins; And Saves No Masses, Either. Thou Wilt Go To Purgatory None The Less.

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

Beautiful Women

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

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.

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

What Believer Sees A Disturbing Omission Or Infelicity? The Text, Whether Of Prophet Or Of Poet, Expands For Whatever We Can Put Into It, And Even His Bad Grammar Is Sublime.

It’s Rather A Strong Check To One’s Self-complacency To Find How Much Of One’s Right Doing Depends On Not Being In Want Of Money.

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.

Imagination Is A Licensed Trespasser: It Has No Fear Of Dogs, But May Climb Over Walls And Peep In At Windows With Impunity.

We Must Not Sit Still And Look For Miracles; Up And Doing, And The Lord Will Be With Thee. Prayer And Pains, Through Faith In Christ Jesus, Will Do Anything.

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

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

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

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

Consequences Are Unpitying.

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.

To The Receptive Soul The River Of Life Pauseth Not, Nor Is Diminished.

Veracity Is A Plant Of Paradise, And The Seeds Have Never Flourished Beyond The Walls.

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

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.

Only In The Agony Of Parting Do We Look Into The Depths Of Love.

The Human Soul Is Hospitable, And Will Entertain Conflicting Sentiments And Contradictory Opinions With Much Impartiality.

I Think There Are Stores Laid Up In Our Human Nature That Our Understandings Can Make No Complete Inventory Of.

A Man Never Lies With More Delicious Languor Under The Influence Of A Passion Than When He Has Persuaded Himself That He Shall Subdue It To-morrow.

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

It Is Well Known To All Experienced Minds That Our Firmest Convictions Are Often Dependent On Subtle Impressions For Which Words Are Quite Too Coarse A Medium.

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.

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

Confound You Handsome Young Fellows! You Think Of Having It All Your Own Way In The World. You Don't Understand Women. They Don't Admire You Half So Much As You Admire Yourselves.

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. There Are Glances Of Hatred That Stab And Raise No Cry Of Murder; Robberies That Leave Man Or Woman For Ever Beggared Of Peace And Joy, Yet Kept Secret By The Sufferer --committed To No Sound Except That Of Low Moans In The Night, Seen In No Writing Except That Made On The Face By The Slow Months Of Suppressed Anguish And Early Morning Tears. Many An Inherited Sorrow That Has Marred A Life Has Been Breathed Into No Human Ear.

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

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.

It Seems To Me We Can Never Give Up Longing And Wishing While We Are Thoroughly Alive. There Are Certain Things We Feel To Be Beautiful And Good, And We Must Hunger After Them.

Bad Literature Of The Sort Called Amusing Is Spiritual Gin.

Poetry And Art And Knowledge Are Sacred And Pure.

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.

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 Mind That Is Too Ready At Contempt And Reprobation Is, I May Say, As A Clenched Fist That Can Give Blows, But Is Shut Up From Receiving And Holding Ought That Is Precious.

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.

... 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.

What A Different Result One Gets By Changing The Metaphor!

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.

It Is A Wonderful Subduer, This Need Of Love-this Hunger Of The Heart-as Peremptory As That Other Hunger By Which Nature Forces Us To Submit To The Yoke, And Change The Face Of The World.

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!

How Impossible It Is For Strong Healthy People To Understand The Way In Which Bodily Malaise And Suffering Eats At The Root Of One's Life! The Philosophy That Is True - The Religion That Is Strength To The Healthy - Is Constantly Emptiness To One When The Head Is Distracted And Every Sensation Is Oppressive.

We Mortals, Men And Women, Devour Many A Disappointment Between Breakfast And Dinner-time; Keep Back The Tears And Look A Little Pale About The Lips, And In Answer To Inquiries Say, "oh, Nothing!" Pride Helps; And Pride Is Not A Bad Thing When It Only Urges Us To Hide Our Hurts— Not To Hurt Others.

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Georges Clemenceau

Joyce Carol Oates

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