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... In No Part Of The World Is Genteel Visiting Founded On Esteem, In The Absence Of Suitable Furniture And Complete Dinner-service.

-George Eliot

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... In No Part

George Eliot

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... In No Part Of The World Is Genteel Visiting Founded On Esteem, In The Absence Of Suitable Furniture And Complete Dinner-service.

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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.

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.

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

The Mother's Love Is At First An Absorbing Delight, Blunting All Other Sensibilities; It Is An Expansion Of The Animal Existence.

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.

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

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

How Is It That The Poets Have Said So Many Fine Things About Our First Love, So Few About Our Later Love? Are Their First Poems Their Best? Or Are Not Those The Best Which Come From Their Fuller Thought, Their Larger Experience, Their Deeper-rooted Affections? The Boy's Flute-like Voice Has Its Own Spring Charm; But The Man Should Yield A Richer, Deeper Music.

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

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.

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

No Anguish I Have Had To Bear On Your Account Has Been Too Heavy A Price To Pay For The New Life Into Which I Have Entered In Loving You.

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

Life Is Measured By The Rapidity Of Change, The Succession Of Influences That Modify The Being.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun. The Perfect Archer Calls The Deer His Own While Yet The Shaft Is Whistling.

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

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

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

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

Joy Is The Best Of Wine.

A Man Falling Into Dark Waters Seeks A Momentary Footing Even On Sliding Stones.

It Is Seldom That The Miserable Can Help Regarding Their Misery As A Wrong Inflicted By Those Who Are Less Miserable.

Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It.

It's All One Web, Sir. The Prosperity Of The Country Is One Web.

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

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

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

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

... When One's Outward Lot Is Perfect, The Sense Of Inward Imperfection Is The More Pressing.

Failure After Long Perseverance Is Much Grander Than Never To Have A Striving Good Enough To Be Called A Failure.

God, Immortality, Duty - How Inconceivable The First, How Unbelievable The Second, How Peremptory And Absolute The Third.

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

The Early Months Of Marriage Often Are Times Of Critical Tumult,--whether That Of A Shrimp Pool Or Of Deeper Water,--which Afterwards Subside Into Cheerful Peace.

Quick Souls Have Their Intensest Life In The First Anticipatory Sketch Of What May Or Will Be, And The Pursuit Of Their Wish Is The Pursuit Of That Paradisiacal Vision Which Only Impelled Them, And Is Left Farther And Farther Behind, Vanishing Forever Even Out Of Hope In The Moment Which Is Called Success.

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

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.

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.

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

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

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.

All The Learnin' My Father Ever Paid For Was A Bit O' Birch At One End And The Alphabet At Th ' Other.

In The Ages Since Adam's Marriage, It Has Been Good For Some Men To Be Alone, And For Some Women Also.

... The Business Of Life Shuts Us Up Within The Environs Of London And Within Sight Of Human Advancement, Which I Should Be So Very Glad To Believe In Without Seeing.

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.

Where You Have Friends You Should Not Go To Inns.

That Quiet Mutual Gaze Of A Trusting Husband And Wife Is Like The First Moment Of Rest Or Refuge From A Great Weariness Or A Great Danger-not To Be Interfered With By Speech Or Action Which Would Distract The Sensations From The Fresh Enjoyment Of Repose.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is, I Fear, But A Vain Show Of Fulfilling The Heathen Precept, ''know Thyself,'' And Too Often Leads To A Self- Estimate Which Will Subsist In The Absence Of That Fruit By Which Alone The Quality Of The Tree Is Made Evident.

... It Is Because Sympathy Is But A Living Again Through Our Own Past In A New Form, That Confession Often Prompts A Response Of Confession.

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

Keep True, Never Be Ashamed Of Doing Right.

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

With A Single Drop Of Ink For A Mirror, The Egyptian Sorcerer Undertakes To Reveal To Any Chance Comer Far-reaching Visions Of The Past. This Is What I Undertake To Do For You, Reader.

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

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

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

It Is Strange How Deeply Colours Seem To Penetrate One, Like Scent.

A Human Being In This Aged Nation Of Ours Is A Very Wonderful Hole, The Slow Creation Of Long Interchanging Influences; And Charm Is A Result Of Two Such Wholes, The One Loving And The One Loved.

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

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

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

No Man Can Be Wise On An Empty Stomach.

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

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

All Things Except Reason And Order Are Possible With A Mob.

The Prevarication And White Lies Which A Mind That Keeps Itself Ambitiously Pure Is As Uneasy Under As A Great Artist Under The False Touches That No Eye Detects But His Own, Are Worn As Lightly As Mere Trimmings When Once The Actions Have Become A Lie.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

There Is No Hour That Has Not Its Births Of Gladness And Despair, No Morning Brightness That Does Not Bring New Sickness To Desolation As Well As New Forces To Genius And Love. There Are So Many Of Us, And Our Lots Are So Different, What Wonder That Nature's Mood Is Often In Harsh Contrast With The Great Crisis Of Our Lives?

My Own Experience And Development Deepen Every Day My Conviction That Our Moral Progress May Be Measured By The Degree In Which We Sympathize With Individual Suffering And Individual Joy.

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

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

There's No Disappointment In Memory, And One's Exaggerations Are Always On The Good Side.

Exaggeration Is

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.

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

The Greatest Benefit We Owe To The Artist, Whether Painter, Poet, Or Novelist, Is The Extension Of Our Sympathies.

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.

Two Angels Guide The Path Of Man, Both Aged And Yet Young. As Angels Are, Ripening Through Endless Years, On One He Leans: Some Call Her Memory, And Some Tradition; And Her Voice Is Sweet, With Deep Mysterious Accords: The Other, Floating Above, Holds Down A Lamp With Streams A Light Divine And Searching On The Earth, Compelling Eyes And Footsteps. Memory Yields, Yet Clings With Loving Check, And Shines Anew, Reflecting All The Rays Of That Bright Lamp Our Angel Reason Holds. We Had Not Walked But For Tradition; We Walk Evermore To Higher Paths By Brightening Reason's Lamp.

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

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.

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

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.

Bad Literature Of The Sort Called Amusing Is Spiritual Gin.

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

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

We Are On A Perilous Margin When We Begin To Look Passively At Our Future Selves, And See Our Own Figures Led With Dull Consent Into Insipid Misdoing And Shabby Achievement.

After All, People May Really Have In Them Some Vocation Which Is Not Quite Plain To Themselves, May They Not? They May Seem Idle And Weak Because They Are Growing. We Should Be Very Patient With Each Other, I Think.

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

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

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

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 Press Has No Band Of Critics Who Go The Round Of The Churches And Chapels, And Are On The Watch For A Slip Or Defect In The Preacher, To Make A 'feature' In Their Article: The Clergy Are, Practically, The Most Irresponsible Of All Talkers.

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

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

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

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

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.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

Speech Is Often Barren; But Silence Also Does Not Necessarily Brood Over A Full Nest. Your Still Fowl, Blinking At You Without Remark, May All The While Be Sitting On One Addled Egg; And When It Takes To Cackling Will Have Nothing To Announce But That Addled Delusion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Blessed Is The Man, Who Having Nothing To Say, Abstains From Giving Wordy Evidence Of The Fact.

Beauty Is Part Of The Finished Language By Which Goodness Speaks.

A Picture Of Human Life Such As A Great Artist Can Give, Surprises Even The Trivial And The Selfish Into That Attention To What Is Apart From Themselves, Which May Be Called The Raw Material Of Moral Sentiment.

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

Finding Yourself

Our Passions Do Not Live Apart In Locked Chambers But Dress In Their Small Wardrobe Of Notions, Bring Their Provisions To A Common Table And Mess Together, Feeding Out Of The Common Store According To Their Appetite.

Wise Books For Half The Truths They Hold Are Honored Tombs.

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

The Wit Of A Family Is Usually Best Received Among Strangers.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

There Are Many Victories Worse Than A Defeat.

In Certain Crises Direct Expression Of Sympathy Is The Least Possible To Those Who Most Feel Sympathy.

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

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

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

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. No Man Can Begin To Mould Himself On A Faith Or An Idea Without Rising To A Higher Order Of Experience: A Principle Of Subordination, Of Self-mastery, Has Been Introduced Into His Nature; He Is No Longer A Mere Bundle Of Impressions, Desires, And Impulses.

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

... There Is A Lightness About The Feminine Mind--a Touch And Go--music, The Fine Arts, That Kind Of Thing--they Should Study Those Up To A Certain Point, Women Should; But In A Light Way, You Know.

Leisure Is Gone,--gone Where The Spinning-wheels Are Gone, And The Pack-horses, And The Slow Wagons, And The Peddlers, Who Brought Bargains To The Door On Sunny Afternoons.

Sunny Afternoon

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?

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

Particular Lies May Speak A General Truth.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself, And To Foist Very Old Incidents Upon Us With Only A Slight Change Of Costume.

We Are All Of Us Born In Moral Stupidity, Taking The World As An Udder To Feed Our Supreme Selves

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

The Devil Tempts Us Not--'tis We Tempt Him, Reckoning His Skill With Opportunity.

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 High Vengeance There Is Noble Scorn.

It Is Very Difficult To Be Learned; It Seems As If People Were Worn Out On The Way To Great Thoughts, And Can Never Enjoy Them Because They Are Too Tired.

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.

Love Supreme Defies All Sophistry.

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

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

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.

If You Had A Table Spread For A Feast, And Was Making Merry With Your Friends, You Would Think It Was Kind To Let Me Come And Sit Down And Rejoice With You, Because You'd Think I Should To Share Those Good Things; But I Should Better To Share In Your Trouble And Your Labour.

Miserliness Is A Capital Quality To Run In Families; It's The Safe Side For Madness To Dip On.

It Is Possible To Have A Strong Self-love Without Any Self-satisfaction, Rather With A Self-discontent Which Is The More Intense Because One's Own Little Core Of Egoistic Sensibility Is A Supreme Care.

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.

Awful Night! Ancestral Mystery Of Mysteries.

Can Any Man Or Woman Choose Duties? No More Than They Can Choose Their Birthplace Or Their Father And Mother.

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

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

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.

Adventure Is Not Outside Man; It Is Within.

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.

It Is A Vain Thought To Flee From The Work That God Appoints Us, For The Sake Of Finding A Greater Blessing, Instead Of Seeking It Where Alone It Is To Be Found - In Loving Obedience.

Our Growing Thought Makes Growing Revelation.

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

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

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

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

Our Thoughts Are Often Worse Than We Are.

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

... 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.

I Think I Should Have No Other Mortal Wants, If I Could Always Have Plenty Of Music. It Seems To Infuse Strength Into My Limbs And Ideas Into My Brain. Life Seems To Go On Without Effort, When I Am Filled With Music.

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

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

We Cannot Reform Our Forefathers.

When Gratitude Has Become A Matter Of Reasoning There Are Many Ways Of Escaping From Its Bonds.

Consequences Are Unpitying. Our Deeds Carry Their Terrible Consequences, Quite Apart From Any Fluctuations That Went Before—consequences That Are Hardly Ever Confined To Ourselves. And It Is Best To Fix Our Minds On That Certainty, Instead Of Considering What May Be The Elements Of Excuse For Us.

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

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.

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.

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

It So Often Happens That Others Are Measuring Us By Our Past Self While We Are Looking Back On That Self With A Mixture Of Disgust And Sorrow.

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

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

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?

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

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.

There Is No Compensation For The Woman Who Feels That The Chief Relation Of Her Life Has Been No More Than A Mistake. She Has Lost Her Crown. The Deepest Secret Of Human Blessedness Has Half Whispered Itself To Her, And Then Forever Passed Her By.

It's Them As Take Advantage That Get Advantage I' This World, I Think: Folks Have To Wait Long Enough Afore It's Brought To 'em.

I Found It Better For My Soul To Be Humble Before The Mysteries O' God's Dealings, And Not Be Making A Clatter About What I Could Never Understand.

Affection Is The Broadest Basis Of A Good Life.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

How Should All The Apparatus Of Heaven And Earth Make Poetry For A Mind That Had No Movements Of Awe And Tenderness, No Sense Of Fellowship Which Thrills From The Near To The Distant, And Back Again From The Distant To The Near?

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.

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

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends.

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