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It Is The Moment When Our Resolution Seems About To Become Irrevocable--when The Fatal Iron Gates Are About To Close Upon Us--that Tests Our Strength. Then, After Hours Of Clear Reasoning And Firm Conviction, We Snatch At Any Sophistry That Will Nullify Our Long Struggles, And Bring Us The Defeat That We Love Better Than Victory.

-George Eliot

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It Is The Moment

George Eliot

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It Is The Moment When Our Resolution Seems About To Become Irrevocable--when The Fatal Iron Gates Are About To Close Upon Us--that Tests Our Strength. Then, After Hours Of Clear Reasoning And Firm Conviction, We Snatch At Any Sophistry That Will Nullify Our Long Struggles, And Bring Us The Defeat That We Love Better Than Victory.

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

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

It Is Better Sometimes Not To Follow Great Reformers Of Abuses Beyond The Threshold Of Their Homes.

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

... 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.

No Man Is Matriculated To The Art Of Life Till He Has Been Well Tempted.

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

Self-confidence Is Apt To Address Itself To An Imaginary Dullness In Others; As People Who Are Well Off Speak In A Cajoling Tone To The Poor.

Self Confidence

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.

Among All The Many Kinds Of First Love, That Which Begins In Childish Companionship Is The Strongest And Most Enduring: When Passion Comes To Unite Its Force To Long Affection, Love Is At Its Spring-tide.

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.

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

Shepperton Church Was A Very Different Looking Building Five-and-twenty Years Ago. To Be Sure, Its Substantial Stone Tower Looks At You Through Its Intelligent Eye, The Clock, With The Friendly Expression Of Former Days; But In Everything Else What Changes!

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

The Dull Mind, Once Arriving At An Inference That Flatters The Desire, Is Rarely Able To Retain The Impression That The Notion From Which The Inference Started Was Purely Problematic.

Family Likeness Has Often A Deep Sadness In It. Nature, That Great Tragic Dramatist, Knits Us Together By Bone And Muscle, And Divides Us By The Subtler Web Of Our Brains; Blends Yearning And Repulsion; And Ties Us By Our Heart-strings To The Beings That Jar Us At Every Movement.

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

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

Ah, I Often Think It's Wi' Th' Old Folks As It Is Wi' The Babies; They're Satisfied Wi' Looking, No Matter What They're Looking At. It's God A'mighty's Way O' Quietening 'em, I Reckon, Afore They Go To Sleep.

Childhood Has No Forebodings; But Then, It Is Soothed By No Memories Of Outlived Sorrow.

One Has To Spend Many Years In Learning How To Be Happy.

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

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

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

Among All Forms Of Mistake, Prophecy Is The Most Gratuitous.

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

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

Wine And The Sun Will Make Vinegar Without Any Shouting To Help Them.

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

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

Who Can Prove Wit To Be Witty When With Deeper Ground Dulness Intuitive Declares Wit Dull?

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.

I Easily Sink Into Mere Absorption Of What Other Minds Have Done, And Should Like A Whole Life For That Alone.

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

So Our Lives Glide On: The River Ends We Don't Know Where, And The Sea Begins, And Then There Is No More Jumping Ashore.

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

A Proud Heart And A Lofty Mountain Are Never Fruitful.

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

In The Multitude Of Middle-aged Men Who Go About Their Vocations In A Daily Course Determined For Them Much In The Same Way As The Tie Of Their Cravats, There Is Always A Good Number Who Once Meant To Shape Their Own Deeds And Alter The World A Little.

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.

"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.

... 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.

Worldly Faces Never Look So Worldly As At A Funeral.

If You Deliver An Opinion At All, It Is Mere Stupidity Not To Do It With An Air Of Conviction And Well-founded Knowledge. You Make It Your Own In Uttering It, And Naturally Get Fond Of It.

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

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?

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

Men Can Do Nothing Without The Make-believe Of A Beginning.

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Bad Literature Of The Sort Called Amusing Is Spiritual Gin.

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.

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

What Should I Do—how Should I Act Now, This Very Day . . . What She Would Resolve To Do That Day Did Not Yet Seem Quite Clear, But Something That She Could Achieve Stirred Her As With An Approaching Murmur Which Would Soon Gather Distinctness.

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

What Courage And Patience Are Wanted For Every Life That Aims To Produce Anything!

Our Deeds Determine Us, As Much As We Determine Our Deeds.

Nothing At Times Is More Expressive Than Silence.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

The Egoism Which Enters Into Our Theories Does Not Affect Their Sincerity; Rather, The More Our Egoism Is Satisfied, The More Robust Is Our Belief.

There Are New Eras In One's Life That Are Equivalent To Youth-are Something Better Than Youth.

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There Is A Great Deal Of Unmapped Country Within Us.

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.

A Woman Dictates Before Marriage In Order That She May Have An Appetite For Submission Afterwards.

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

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.

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

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

It's But Little Good You'll Do A-watering The Last Year's Crops

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It Is Difficult For Woman To Try To Be Anything Good When She Is Not Believed In.

Inclination Snatches Arguments To Make Indulgence Seem Judicious Choice.

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

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

In The Chequered Area Of Human Experience The Seasons Are All Mingled As In The Golden Age: Fruit And Blossom Hang Together; In The Same Moment The Sickle Is Reaping And The Seed Is Sprinkled; One Tends The Green Cluster And Another Treads The Wine-press. Nay, In Each Of Our Lives Harvest And Spring-time Are Continually One, Until Death Himself Gathers Us And Sows Us Anew In His Invisible Fields.

If A Man Goes A Little Too Far Along A New Road, It Is Usually Himself That He Harms More Than Any One Else.

One Has To Spend So Many Years In Learning How To Be Happy. I Am Just Beginning To Make Some Progress In The Science, And I Hope To Disprove Young's Theory That "as Soon As We Have Found The Key Of Life It Opes The Gates Of Death." Every Year Strips Us Of At Least One Vain Expectation, And Teaches Us To Reckon Some Solid Good In Its Stead. I Never Will Believe That Our Youngest Days Are Our Happiest. What A Miserable Augury For The Progress Of The Race And The Destination Of The Individual If The More Matured And Enlightened State Is The Less Happy One!

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

Fate Has Carried Me 'mid The Thick Arrows: I Will Keep My Stand Not Shrink And Let The Shaft Pass By My Breast To Pierce Another.

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

There Are Men Whose Presence Infuses Trust And Reverence.

The Sweetest Of All Success Is That Which One Wins By Hard Exertion.

The Bow Always Strung ... Will Not Do.

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

Minds Fettered By This Doctrine No Longer Inquire Concerning A Proposition Whether It Is Attested By Sufficient Evidence, But Whether It Accords With Scripture; They Do Not Search For Facts As Such, But For Facts That Will Bear Out Their Doctrine. It Is Easy To See That This Mental Habit Blunts Not Only The Perception Of Truth, But The Sense Of Truthfulness, And That The Man Whose Faith Drives Him Into Fallacies Treads Close Upon The Precipice Of Falsehood.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Select Natures Who Pant After The Ideal, And Find Nothing In Pantaloons Or Petticoats Great Enough To Command Their Reverence And Love, Are Curiously In Unison With The Narrowest And Pettiest.

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

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

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

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

It Is Never Too Late To Become The Person You Always Thought You Could Be.

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

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

Every Man's Work, Pursued Steadily, Tends To Become An End In Itself, And So To Bridge Over The Loveless Chasms Of His Life.

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

I Take A Dose Of Mathematics Every Day To Prevent My Brain From Becoming Quite Soft.

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.

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

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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.

Are There Many Situations More Sublimely Tragic Than The Struggle Of The Soul With The Demand To Renounce A Work Which Has Been All The Significance Of Its Life--a Significance Which Is To Vanish As The Waters Which Come And Go Where No Man Has Need Of Them?

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.

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

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.

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

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 Don't Feel Sure About Doing Good In Any Way Now; Everything Seems Like Going On A Mission To A People Whose Language I Don't Know.

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

I Think Any Hardship Is Better Than Pretending To Do What One Is Paid For, And Never Really Doing It.

The Strongest Principle Of Growth Lies In The Human Choice.

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

Letter-writing I Imagine Is Counted As 'work' From Which You Must Abstain, And I Scribble This Letter Simply From The Self-satisfied Notion That You Will Like To Hear From Me. You See, I Have Asked No Questions, Which Are The Torture-screws Of Correspondence. Hence You Have Nothing To Answer.

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

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

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.

Truth Has Rough Flavours If We Bite It Through.

The Intensest Form Of Hatred Is That Rooted In Fear.

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

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.

The Human Heart Finds Nowhere Shelter But In Human Kind.

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

"abroad," That Large Home Of Ruined Reputations.

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.

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.

The Worst Of All Hobbies Are Those That People Think They Can Get Money At. They Shoot Their Money Down Like Corn Out Of A Sack Then.

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O May I Join The Choir Invisible Of Those Immortal Dead Who Live Again In Minds Made Better By Their Presence; Live In Pulses Stirred To Generosity, In Deeds Of Daring Rectitude, In Scorn For Miserable Aims That End With Self, In Thoughts Sublime That Pierce The Night Like Stars, And With Their Mild Persistence Urge Men's Search To Vaster Issues.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Last Refuge Of Intolerance Is In Not Tolerating The Intolerant.

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

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.

He Was One Of Those Men, And They Are Not The Commonest, Of Whom We Can Know The Best Only By Following Them Away From The Marketplace, The Platform, And The Pulpit, Entering With Them Into Their Own Homes, Hearing The Voice With Which They Speak To The Young And Aged About Their Own Hearthstone, And Witnessing Their Thoughtful Care For The Everyday Wants Of Everyday Companions, Who Take All Their Kindness As A Matter Of Course, And Not As A Subject For Panegyric.

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

Who Can Know How Much Of His Most Inward Life Is Made Up Of The Thoughts He Believes Other Men To Have About Him, Until That Fabric Of Opinion Is Threatened With Ruin?

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

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

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

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

Young Love-making--that Gossamer Web! Even The Points It Clings To--the Things Whence Its Subtle Interlacings Are Swung--are Scarcely Perceptible: Momentary Touches Of Finger-tips, Meetings Of Rays From Blue And Dark Orbs, Unfinished Phrases, Lightest Changes Of Cheek And Lip, Faintest Tremors. The Web Itself Is Made Of Spontaneous Beliefs And Indefinable Joys, Yearnings Of One Life Towards Another, Visions Of Completeness, Indefinite Trust.

Life's A Vast Sea That Does Its Mighty Errand Without Fail, Painting In Unchanged Strength Though Waves Are Changing.

In High Vengeance There Is Noble Scorn.

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

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

There Is A Sort Of Subjection Which Is The Peculiar Heritage Of Largeness And Of Love; And Strength Is Often Only Another Name For Willing Bondage To Irremediable Weakness.

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

Under Every Guilty Secret There Is Hidden A Brood Of Guilty Wishes, Whose Unwholesome Infecting Life Is Cherished By The Darkness.

What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of A Motive.

There Was No Gleam, No Shadow, For The Heavens, Too, Were One Still, Pale Cloud; No Sound Or Motion In Anything But The Dark River That Flowed And Moaned Like An Unresting Sorrow.

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.

The Words Of Genius Have A Wider Meaning Than The Thought That Prompted Them.

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.

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

For My Part I Am Very Sorry For Him. 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--never To Be Fully Possessed By The Glory We Behold, Never To Have Our Consciousness Rapturously Transformed Into The Vividness Of A Thought, The Ardour Of A Passion, The Energy Of An Action, But Always To Be Scholarly And Uninspired, Ambitious And Timid, Scrupulous And Dimsighted.

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

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.

Our Dead Are Never Dead To Us Until We Have Forgotten Them: They Can Be Injured By Us, They Can Be Wounded; They Know All Our Penitence, All Our Aching Sense That Their Place Is Empty, All The Kisses We Bestow On The Smallest Relic Of Their Presence.

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.

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

There's Truth In Wine, And There May Be Some In Gin And Muddy Beer; But Whether It's Truth Worth My Knowing, Is Another Question.

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

...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.

... The True Seeing Is Within; And Painting Stares At You With An Insistent Imperfection.

I Suppose It Was That In Courtship Everything Is Regarded As Provisional And Preliminary, And The Smallest Sample Of Virtue Or Accomplishment Is Taken To Guarantee Delightful Stores Which The Broad Leisure Of Marriage Will Reveal. But The Door-sill Of Marriage Once Crossed, Expectation Is Concentrated On The Present. Having Once Embarked On Your Marital Voyage, It Is Impossible Not To Be Aware That You Make No Way And That The Sea Is Not Within Sight-that, In Fact, You Are Exploring An Enclosed Basin.

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

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.

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

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

The First Condition Of Human Goodness Is Something To Love; The Second, Something To Reverence.

We Mustn't Be In A Hurry To Fix And Choose Our Own Lot; We Must Wait To Be Guided.

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

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

Vague Memories Hang About The Mind Like Cobwebs.

It Is A Sad Weakness In Us, After All, That The Thought Of A Man's Death Hallows Him Anew To Us; As If Life Were Not Sacred Too.

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

Looking At Your Life As A Debt May Seem The Dreariest View Of Things At A Distance; But It Cannot Really Be So. What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of Motive; But Once Beginning To Act With The Penitential, Loving Purpose You Have In Your Mind, There Will Be Unexpected Satisfactions--there Will Be Newly-opening Needs--continually Coming To Carry You On From Day To Day. You Will Find Your Life Growing Like A Plant.

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

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

A Woman's Rank Lies In The Fulness Of Her Womanhood: Therein Alone She Is Royal.

I Like To Read About Moses Best, In Th' Old Testament. He Carried A Hard Business Well Through, And Died When Other Folks Were Going To Reap The Fruits; A Man Must Have Courage To Look After His Life So, And Think What'll Come F It After He's Dead And Gone.

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

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.

Human Longings Are Perversely Obstinate; And To The Man Whose Mouth Is Watering For A Peach, It Is Of No Use To Offer The Largest Vegetable Marrow.

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.

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Winston Churchill

Stanley Milgram

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