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If Youth Is The Season Of Hope, It Is Often So Only In The Sense That Our Elders Are Hopeful About Us; For No Age Is So Apt As Youth To Think Its Emotions, Partings, And Resolves Are The Last Of Their Kind. Each Crisis Seems Final, Simply Because It Is New. We Are Told That The Oldest Inhabitants In Peru Do Not Cease To Be Agitated By The Earthquakes, But They Probably See Beyond Each Shock, And Reflect That There Are Plenty More To Come.

-George Eliot

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If Youth Is The

George Eliot

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If Youth Is The Season Of Hope, It Is Often So Only In The Sense That Our Elders Are Hopeful About Us; For No Age Is So Apt As Youth To Think Its Emotions, Partings, And Resolves Are The Last Of Their Kind. Each Crisis Seems Final, Simply Because It Is New. We Are Told That The Oldest Inhabitants In Peru Do Not Cease To Be Agitated By The Earthquakes, But They Probably See Beyond Each Shock, And Reflect That There Are Plenty More To Come.

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

Falsehood Is So Easy, Truth So Difficult. Even With No Motive To Be False, It Is Very Hard To Say The Exact Truth.

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.

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

Don't Seem To He On The Lookout For Crows, Else You'll Set Other People Watching.

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

Women Know No Perfect Love: Loving The Strong, They Can Forsake The Strong; Man Clings Because The Being Whom He Loves Is Weak And Needs Him.

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

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.

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.

Religion, Like All Things, Begins With Self, And Naught Is Known, Until One Knows Himself.

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

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

A Good Solid Bit Of Work Lasts.

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

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.

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.

Our Thoughts Are Often Worse Than We Are.

I'm Proof Against That Word Failure. I've Seen Behind It. The Only Failure A Man Ought To Fear Is Failure Of Cleaving To The Purpose He Sees To Be Best.

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

Of New Acquaintances One Can Never Be Sure Because One Likes Them One Day That It Will Be So The Next. Of Old Friends One Is Sure That It Will Be The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

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

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

Hobbies Are Apt To Run Away With Us, You Know; It Doesn't Do To Be Run Away With. We Must Keep The Reins.

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.

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

So Much Of Our Early Gladness Vanishes Utterly From Our Memory: We Can Never Recall The Joy With Which We Laid Our Heads On Our Mother's Bosom Or Rode On Our Father's Back In Childhood; Doubtless That Joy Is Wrought Up Into Our Nature, As The Sunlight Of Long-past Mornings Is Wrought Up In The Soft Mellowness Of The Apricot; But It Is Gone Forever From Our Imagination, And We Can Only Believe In The Joy Of Childhood.

You Are A Good Young Man," She Said. "but I Do Not Like Husbands. I Will Never Have Another.

The Jews Are Among The Aristocracy Of Every Land; If A Literature Is Called Rich In The Possession Of A Few Classic Tragedies, What Shall We Say To A National Tragedy Lasting For Fifteen Hundred Years, In Which The Poets And The Actors Were Also The Heroes.

Mortals Are Easily Tempted To Pinch The Life Out Of Their Neighbour's Buzzing Glory, And Think That Such Killing Is No Murder.

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.

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

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

Kisses Honeyed By Oblivion.

Does Any One Suppose That Private Prayer Is Necessarily Candid--necessarily Goes To The Roots Of Action! Private Prayer Is Inaudible Speech, And Speech Is Representative: Who Can Represent Himself Just As He Is, Even In His Own Reflections?

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

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 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.

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.

Religious Ideas Have The Fate Of Melodies, Which, Once Set Afloat In The World, Are Taken Up By All Sorts Of Instruments, Some Of Them Woefully Coarse, Feeble, Or Out Of Tune, Until People Are In Danger Of Crying Out That The Melody Itself Is Detestable.

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

Mighty Is The Force Of Motherhood! It Transforms All Things By Its Vital Heat.

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

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

If I Got Places, Sir, It Was Because I Made Myself Fit For 'em. If You Want To Slip Into A Round Hole, You Must First Make A Ball Of Yourself; That's Where It Is.

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

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

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

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.

You Must Love Your Work, And Not Be Always Looking Over The Edge Of It, Wanting Your Play To Begin. And The Other Is, You Must Not Be Ashamed Of Your Work, And Think It Would Be More Honorable To You To Be Doing Something Else. You Must Have A Pride In Your Own Work And In Learning To Do It Well.

Our Growing Thought Makes Growing Revelation.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Not Only Want To Be Loved, I Want To Be Told That I'm Loved.

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

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

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

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.

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.

We Are All Of Us Imaginative In Some Form Or Other, For Images Are The Brood Of Desire.

...there's Never A Garden In All The Parish But What There's Endless Waste In It For Want O' Somebody As Could Use Everything Up. It's What I Think To Myself Sometimes, As There Need Nobody Run Short O' Victuals If The Land Was Made The Most On, And There Was Never A Morsel But What Could Find It's Way To A Mouth.

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.

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

It Is Easy To Say How We Love New Friends, And What We Think Of Them, But Words Can Never Trace Out All The Fibers That Knit Us To The Old.

I Have Nothing To Tell Except Travellers' Stories, Which Are Always Tiresome, Like The Description Of A Play Which Was Very Exciting To Those Who Saw It.

Quarrel? Nonsense; We Have Not Quarreled. If One Is Not To Get Into A Rage Sometimes, What Is The Good Of Being Friends?

Poetry And Art And Knowledge Are Sacred And Pure.

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.

Habit Is The Beneficent Harness Of Routine Which Enables Silly Men To Live Respectfully And Unhappy Men To Live Calmly

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

Death Is The Only Physician, The Shadow Of His Valley The Only Journeying That Will Cure Us Of Age And The Gathering Fatigue Of Years.

Speech Is But Broken Light Upon The Depth Of The Unspoken.

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

Everybody Liked Better To Conjecture How The Thing Was, Than Simply To Know It; For Conjecture Soon Became More Confident Than Knowledge, And Had A More Liberal Allowance For The Incompatible.

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

You May Try — But You Can Never Imagine What It Is To Have A Man's Force Of Genius In You, And Yet To Suffer The Slavery Of Being A Girl.

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.

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

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.

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

The Memory Has As Many Moods As The Temper, And Shifts Its Scenery Like A Diorama.

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 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.

Oh May I Join The Choir Invisible Of Those Immortal Dead Who Live Again In Minds Made Better By Their Presence.

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.

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.

A Blush Is No Language; Only A Dubious Flag - Signal Which May Mean Either Of Two Contradictories

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

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.

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

I Think The Effective Use Of Quotation Is An Important Point In The Art Of Writing. Given Sparingly, Quotations Serve Admirably As A Climax Or As A Corroboration, But When They Are Long And Frequent, They Seriously Weaken The Effect Of A Book. We Lose Sight Of The Writer - He Scatters Our Sympathy Among Others Than Himself - And The Ideas Which He Himself Advances Are Not Knit Together With Our Impression Of His Personality.

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

Your Trouble's Easy Borne When Everybody Gives It A Lift For You.

The Happiest Women, Like The Happiest Nations, Have No History.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Much Of Our Waking Experience Is But A Dream In The Daylight.

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

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.

No Man Can Be Wise On An Empty Stomach.

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

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

The Human Heart Finds Nowhere Shelter But In Human Kind.

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.

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

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

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.

But I Think It Is Hardly An Argument Against A Man's General Strength Of Character, That He Should Be Apt To Be Mastered By Love. A Fine Constitution Doesn't Insure One Against Small-pox Or Any Other Of Those Inevitable Diseases. A Man May Be Very Firm In Other Matters, And Yet Be Under A Sort Of Witchery From A Woman.

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.

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

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

All Who Remember Their Childhood Remember The Strange Vague Sense, When Some New Experience Came, That Everything Else Was Going To Be Changed, And That There Would Be No Lapse Into The Old Monotony.

New Experiences

What Loneliness Is More Lonely Than Distrust?

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

No Soul Is Desolate As Long As There Is A Human Being For Whom It Can Feel Trust And Reverence.

"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.

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

Most Of Us Who Turn To Any Subject We Love Remember Some Morning Or Evening Hour When We Got On A High Stool To Reach Down An Untried Volume, Or Sat With Parted Lips Listening To A New Talker, Or For Very Lack Of Books Began To Listen To The Voices Within, As The First Traceable Beginning Of Our Love.

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.

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

I'd Sooner Have One Real Grief On My Mind Than Twenty False. It's Better To Know One's Robbed Than To Think One's Going To Be Murdered.

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

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.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

Perhaps His Might Be One Of The Natures Where A Wise Estimate Of Consequences Is Fused In The Fires Of That Passionate Belief Which Determines The Consequences It Believes In.

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.

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

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.

Wear A Smile And Have Friends; Wear A Scowl And Have Wrinkles.

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

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

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.

When You See Fair Hair Be Pitiful.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Idea Of Duty--that Recognition Of Something To Be Lived For Beyond The Mere Satisfaction Of Self--is To The Moral Life What The Addition Of A Great Central Ganglion Is To Animal Life.

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

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.

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.

Might, Could, Would - They Are Contemptible Auxiliaries.

Positive Thinking

It Is Never Too Late To Be Who You Want To Be.

A Prig Is A Fellow Who Is Always Making You A Present Of His Opinions.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

Those Who Trust Us Educate Us.

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

Any Coward Can Fight A Battle When He's Sure Of Winning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If Troubles Were Put Up To Market, I'd Sooner Buy Old Than New. It's Something To Have Seen The Worst.

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.

I Will To Make Life Less Bitter For A Few Within My Reach.

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

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

Susceptible Persons Are More Affected By A Change Of Tone That By Unexpected Words.

We Cannot Reform Our Forefathers.

Consequences Are Unpitying.

Life Was Never Anything But A Perpetual See-saw Between Gravity And Jest.

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

When Death, The Great Reconciler, Has Come, It Is Never Our Tenderness That We Repent Of, But Our Severity.

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.

... The Fallibility Of Human Brains Is In Nothing More Obvious Than In Proof Reading.

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.

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

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

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?

As To People Saying A Few Idle Words About Us, We Must Not Mind That, Any More Than The Old Church Steeple Minds The Rooks Cawing About It.

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.

In Every Parting There Is An Image Of Death.

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

I Wish Always To Be Quoted As George Eliot.

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.

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George R. R. Martin

Katherine Anne Porter

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