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Let Thy Chief Terror Be Of Thine Own Soul: There, 'mid The Throng Of Hurrying Desires That Trample O'er The Dead To Seize Their Spoil, Lurks Vengeance, Footless, Irresistible As Exhaltations Laden With Slow Death, And O'er The Fairest Troop Of Captured Joys Breathes Pallid Pestilence.

-George Eliot

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Let Thy Chief Terror

George Eliot

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Let Thy Chief Terror Be Of Thine Own Soul: There, 'mid The Throng Of Hurrying Desires That Trample O'er The Dead To Seize Their Spoil, Lurks Vengeance, Footless, Irresistible As Exhaltations Laden With Slow Death, And O'er The Fairest Troop Of Captured Joys Breathes Pallid Pestilence.

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Let Thy Chief Terror Be Of Thine Own Soul: There, 'mid The Throng Of Hurrying Desires That Trample O'er The Dead To Seize Their Spoil, Lurks Vengeance, Footless, Irresistible As Exhaltations Laden With Slow Death, And O'er The Fairest Troop Of Captured Joys Breathes Pallid Pestilence.

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

You Must Love Your Work And Not Always Be Looking Over The Edge Of It Wanting Your Play To Begin.

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. . . .

Any Coward Can Fight A Battle When He's Sure Of Winning; But Give Me The Man Who Has The Pluck To Fight When He's Sure Of Losing.

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.

The Sublime Delight Of Truthful Speech To One Who Has The Great Gift Of Uttering It, Will Make Itself Felt Even Through The Pangs Of Sorrow.

As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

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

Finding Yourself

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

It Is 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.

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.

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

I Am Feeling Easy Now, And You Will Well Understand That After Undergoing Pain This Ease Is Opening Paradise. Invalids Must Be Excused For Being Eloquent About Themselves.

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

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

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

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

... One Always Believes One's Own Town To Be More Stupid Than Any Other.

I Have The Conviction That Excessive Literary Production Is A Social Offense. ... Everyone Who Contributes To The 'too Much' Of Literature Is Doing Grave Social Injury.

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.

What Destroys Us Most Effectively Is Not A Malign Fate But Our Own Capacity For Self-deception And For Degrading Our Own Best Self.

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

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

We Are Rather Apt To Consider An Act Wrong Because It Is Unpleasant To Us.

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

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?

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.

Whatever May Be The Success Of My Stories, I Shall Be Resolute In Preserving My Incognito, Having Observed That A Nom De Plume Secures All The Advantages Without The Disagreeables Of Reputation.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Particular Lies May Speak A General Truth.

Those Only Can Thoroughly Feel The Meaning Of Death Who Know What Is Perfect Love.

When One Wanted One's Interests Looking After Whatever The Cost, It Was Not So Well For A Lawyer To Be Over Honest, Else He Might Not Be Up To Other People's Tricks.

I Don't Remember Ever Being See-saw, When I'd Made My Mind Up That A Thing Was Wrong. It Takes The Taste Out O' My Mouth For Things, When I Know I Should Have A Heavy Conscience After 'em. I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Could Cast Up A Sum, As You Can Never Do What's Wrong Without Breeding Sin And Trouble More Than You Can Ever See. It's Like A Bit O' Bad Workmanship--you Never See Th' End O' The Mischief It'll Do. And It's A Poor Look-out To Come Into The World To Make Your Fellow Creatures Worse Off Instead O' Better.

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

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.

Deeds Are The Pulse Of Time, His Beating Life, And Righteous Or Unrighteous, Being Done, Must Throb In After-throbs Till Time Itself Be Laid In Stillness, And The Universe Quiver And Breathe Upon No Mirror More.

Man Cannot Choose His Duties.

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.

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

Perhaps Nothing Ud Be A Lesson To Us If It Didn't Come Too Late. It's Well We Should Feel As Life's A Reckoning We Can't Make Twice Over; There's No Real Making Amends In This World, Any More Nor You Can Mend A Wrong Subtraction By Doing Your Addition Right.

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

How Unspeakably The Lengthening Of Memories In Common Endears Our Old Friends!

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.

Enveloped In A Common Mist, We Seem To Walk In Clearness Ourselves, And Behold Only The Mist That Enshrouds Others.

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

Our Thoughts Are Often Worse Than We Are.

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

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.

The Men Are Mostly So Slow, Their Thoughts Overrun 'em, An' They Can Only Catch 'em By The Tail. I Can Count A Stocking-top While A Man's Getting's Tongue Ready; An' When He Outs Wi' His Speech At Last, There's Little Broth To Be Made On't. It's Your Dead Chicks Take The Longest Hatchin'.

When One Is Five-and-twenty, One Has Not Chalk-stones At One's Finger-ends That The Touch Of A Handsome Girl Should Be Entirely Indifferent.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Can't Use It? An Unfecundated Egg, Which The Waves Of Time Wash Away Into Nonentity.

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.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

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.

It Is Always Fatal To Have Music Or Poetry Interrupted.

In The Vain Laughter Of Folly Wisdom Hears Half Its Applause.

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

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.

There Is No Killing The Suspicion That Deceit Has Once Begotten.

Blessed Is The Influence Of One True, Loving Human Soul On Another.

As Soon As We Lay Ourselves Entirely At His Feet, We Have Enough Light Given Us To Guide Our Own Steps; As The Foot-soldier Who Hears Nothing Of The Councils That Determine The Course Of The Great Battle He Is In, Hears Plainly Enough The Word Of Command That They Must Themselves Obey.

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

It Is Always Good To Know, If Only In Passing, Charming Human Beings. It Refreshes One Like Flowers And Woods And Clear Brooks.

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.

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

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

Nature Has Her Language, And She Is Not Unveracious; But We Don't Know All The Intricacies Of Her Syntax Just Yet, And In A Hasty Reading We May Happen To Extract The Very Opposite Of Her Real Meaning.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I Cherish My Childish Loves--the Memory Of That Warm Little Nest Where My Affections Were Fledged.

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

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

... 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.

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

Human Feeling Is Like The Mighty Rivers That Bless The Earth: It Does Not Wait For Beauty — It Flows With Resistless Force And Brings Beauty With It.

I 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.

We Have All Our Secret Sins; And If We Knew Ourselves We Should Not Judge Each Other Harshly.

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

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.

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.

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

If The Past Is Not To Bind Us, Where Can Duty Lie? We Should Have No Law But The Inclination Of The Moment.

No Matter Whether Failure Came A Thousand Different Times, For One Brief Moment Of Success, Life Rang Its Golden Chimes.

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

What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of A Motive.

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

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.

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

Duty Has A Trick Of Behaving Unexpectedly -- Something Like A Heavy Friend Whom We Have Amiably Asked To Visit Us, And Who Breaks His Leg Within Our Gates.

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.

Worldly Faces Never Look So Worldly As At A Funeral. They Have The Same Effect Of Grating Incongruity As The Sound Of A Coarse Voice Breaking The Solemn Silence Of Night.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Poor Fellow! I Think He Is In Love With You.' I Am Not Aware Of It. And To Me It Is One Of The Most Odious Things In A Girl's Life, That There Must Always Be Some Supposition Of Falling In Love Coming Between Her And Any Man Who Is Kind To Her... I Have No Ground For The Nonsensical Vanity Of Fancying Everybody Who Comes Near Me Is In Love With Me.

Falling In Love

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

When You Get Me A Good Man Made Out Of Arguments, I Will Get You A Good Dinner With Reading You The Cookery Book.

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

It Is In The Nature Of Foolish Reasonings To Seem Good To The Foolish Reasoner.

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.

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.

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.

Blameless People Are Always The Most Exasperating.

It Is The Way With Half The Truth Amidst Which We Live, That It Only Haunts Us And Makes Dull Pulsations That Are Never Born Into Sound.

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

Surely, Surely The Only One True Knowledge Of Our Fellow Man Is That Which Enables Us To Feel With Him--which Gives Us A Fine Ear For The Heart-pulses That Are Beating Under The Mere Clothes Of Circumstance And Opinion.

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.

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.

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

In So Complex A Thing As Human Nature, We Must Consider It Is Hard To Find Rules Without Exception.

No Compliment Can Be Eloquent, Except As An Expression Of Indifference.

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

It Is Impossible, To Me At Least, To Be Poetical In Cold Weather.

The Best Happiness Will Be To Escape The Worst Misery.

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.

I Hold It A Blasphemy To Say That A Man Ought Not To Fight Against Authority: There Is No Great Religion And No Great Freedom That Has Not Done It, In The Beginning.

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

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

Time, Like Money, Is Measured By Our Needs.

Fine Art, Poetry, That Kind Of Thing, Elevates A Nation.

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

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.

Nothing At Times Is More Expressive Than Silence.

The Best Augury Of A Man's Success In His Profession Is That He Thinks It The Finest In The World.

Congratulations

In Poor Rosamond's Mind There Was Not Room Enough For Luxuries To Look Small In.

Strong Souls Live Like Fire-hearted Suns To Spend Their Strength In Farthest Striving Action; Breathe More Free In Mighty Anguish Than In Trivial Ease.

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.

After All, The True Seeing Is Within.

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.

A Good Horse Makes Short Miles.

Man May Content Himself With The Applause Of The World And The Homage Paid To His Intellect, But Woman's Heart Has Holier Idols.

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; Whereas Ignorance Is A Blind Giant Who, Let Him But Wax Unbound, Would Make It A Sport To Seize The Pillars That Hold Up The Long-wrought Fabric Of Human Good, And Turn All The Places Of Joy As Dark As A Buried Babylon.

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.

Great Love Has Many Attributes, And Shrines For Varied Worshippers, But His Force Divine Shows Most Its Many-named Fulness In The Man Whose Nature Multitudinously Mixed-- Each Ardent Impulse Grappling With A Thought-- Resists All Easy Gladness, All Content Save Mystic Rapture, Where The Questioning Soul Flooded With Consciousness Of Good That Is Finds Life One Bounteous Answer.

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

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

Kisses Honeyed By Oblivion.

A Suppressed Resolve Will Betray Itself In The Eyes.

Self-consciousness Of The Manner Is The Expensive Substitute For Simplicity.

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

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.

But The Effect Of Her Being On Those Around Her Was Incalculably Diffusive: For The Growing Good Of The World Is Partly Dependent On Unhistoric Acts; And That Things Are Not So Ill With You And Me As They Might Have Been, Is Half Owing To The Number Who Lived Faithfully A Hidden Life, And Rest In Unvisited Tombs.

As To Memory, It Is Known That This Frail Faculty Naturally Lets Drop The Facts Which Are Less Flattering To Our Self-love - When It Does Not Retain Them Carefully As Subjects Not To Be Approached, Marshy Spots With A Warning Flag Over Them.

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.

What A Different Result One Gets By Changing The Metaphor!

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.

One Can Say Everything Best Over A Meal.

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.

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

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.

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

Mankind Is Not Disposed To Look Narrowly Into The Conduct Of Great Victors When Their Victory Is On The Right Side.

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.

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

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

A Woman's Lot Is Made For Her By The Love She Accepts.

A Fool Or Idiot Is One Who Expects Things To Happen That Never Can Happen.

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

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

Few Things Hold The Perception More Thoroughly Captive Than Anxiety About What We Have Got To Say

We Are Led On, Like Little Children, By A Way We Know Not.

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

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.

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

The Rich Ate And Drank Freely, Accepting Gout And Apoplexy As Things That Ran Mysteriously In Respectable Families.

Autobiography At Least Saves A Man Or Woman That The World Is Curious About From The Publication Of A String Of Mistakes Called 'memoirs.

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

What Do We Live For, If Not To Make Life Less Difficult For Each Other?

Many An Inherited Sorrow That Has Marred A Life Has Been Breathed Into No Human Ear.

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

I Wish Always To Be Quoted As George Eliot.

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.

... 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.

Character Is Not Cut In Marble - It Is Not Something Solid And Unalterable. It Is Something Living And Changing, And May Become Diseased As Our Bodies Do.

The Most Powerful Movement Of Feeling With A Liturgy Is The Prayer Which Seeks For Nothing Special, But Is A Yearning To Escape From The Limitations Of Our Own Weakness And An Invocation Of All Good To Enter And Abide With Us.

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

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