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

-George Eliot

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Life Is Very Difficult.

George Eliot

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

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

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.

It Is A Common Sentence That Knowledge Is Power; But Who Hath Duly Considered Or Set Forth The Power Of Ignorance? Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down. Knowledge, Through Patient And Frugal Centuries, Enlarges Discovery And Makes Record Of It; Ignorance, Wanting Its Day's Dinner, Lights A Fire With The Record, And Gives A Flavour To Its One Roast With The Burnt Souls Of Many Generations.

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?

For Pain Must Enter Into Its Glorified Life Of Memory Before It Can Turn Into Compassion.

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

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.

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.

I Have No Courage To Write Much Unless I Am Written To. I Soon Begin To Think That There Are Plenty Of Other Correspondents More Interesting - So If You All Want To Hear From Me You Know The Conditions.

And, Of Course Men Know Best About Everything, Except What Women Know Better.

The Yoke A Man Creates For Himself By Wrong-doing Will Breed Hate In The Kindliest Nature.

Ah! But The Moods Lie In His Nature, My Boy, Just As Much As His Reflections Did, And More. A Man Can Never Do Anything At Variance With His Own Nature. He Carries Within Him The Germ Of His Most Exceptional Action; And If We Wise People Make Eminent Fools Of Ourselves On Any Particular Occasion, We Must Endure The Legitimate Conclusion That We Carry A Few Grains Of Folly To Our Ounce Of Wisdom.

A Woman's Hopes Are Woven Of Sunbeams; A Shadow Annihilates 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.

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

Hurt, He'll Never Be Hurt--he's Made To Hurt Other People.

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

Until Every Good Man Is Brave, We Must Expect To Find Many Good Women Timid--too Timid Even To Believe In The Correctness Of Their Own Best Promptings, When These Would Place Them In A Minority.

Where You Have Friends You Should Not Go To Inns.

Oh, Child, Men's Men: Gentle Or Simple, They're Much Of A Muchness.

Opposition May Become Sweet To A Man When He Has Christened It Persecution.

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

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

Love Is Such A Simple Thing When We Have Only One-and-twenty Summers And A Sweet Girl Of Seventeen Trembles Under Our Glance, As If She Were A Bud First Opening Her Heart With Wondering Rapture To The Morning. Such Young Unfurrowed Souls Roll To Meet Each Other Like Two Velvet Peaches That Touch Softly And Are At Rest; They Mingle As Easily As Two Brooklets That Ask For Nothing But To Entwine Themselves And Ripple With Ever-interlacing Curves In The Leafiest Hiding-places.

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.

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.

There Is Heroism Even In The Circles Of Hell For Fellow-sinners Who Cling To Each Other In The Fiery Whirlwind And Never Recriminate.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

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

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

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.

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

Fatally Powerful As Religious Systems Have Been, Human Nature Is Stronger And Wider, And Though Dogmas May Hamper They Cannot Absolutely Repress Its Growth.

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

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!

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

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

It's A Strange Thing To Think Of A Man As Can Lift A Chair With His Teeth, And Walk Fifty Mile On End, Trembling And Turning Hot And Cold At Only A Look From One Woman Out Of All The Rest I' The World. It's A Mystery We Can Give No Account Of.

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

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.

A Common Fallacy: To Imagine A Measure Will Be Easy Because We Have Private Motives For Desiring It.

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.

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 Growing Thought Makes Growing Revelation.

When A Homemaking Aunt Scolds A Niece For Following Her Evangelistic Passion Instead Of Domestic Pursuits, Her Reply Is Interesting. First, She Clarifies That God's Individual Call On Her Doesn't Condemn Those In More Conventional Roles. Then, She Says She Can No More Ignore The Cry Of The Lost Than Her Aunt Can The Cry Of Her Child.

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

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.

Net The Large Fish And You Are Sure To Have The Small Fry.

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

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?

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

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

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

Finding Yourself

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

Ignorance ... Is A Painless Evil; So, I Should Think, Is Dirt, Considering The Merry Faces That Go Along With It.

I Shall Be So Glad If You Will Tell Me What To Read. I Have Been Looking Into All The Books In The Library At Offendene, But There Is Nothing Readable. The Leaves All Stick Together And Smell Musty. I Wish I Could Write Books To Amuse Myself, As You Can! How Delightful It Must Be To Write Books After One's Own Taste Instead Of Reading Other People's! Home-made Books Must Be So Nice.

Well, I Aren't Like A Bird-clapper, Forced To Make A Rattle When The Wind Blows On Me. I Can Keep My Own Counsel When There's No Good I' Speaking.

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

Receptiveness Is A Rare And Massive Power, Like Fortitude.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Plain Women He Regarded As He Did The Other Severe Facts Of Life, To Be Faced With Philosophy And Investigated By Science.

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

A Human Life, I Think, Should Be Well Rooted In Some Spot Of A Native Land, Where It May Get The Love Of Tender Kinship For The Face Of Earth, For The Labors Men Go Forth To, For The Sounds And Accents That Haunt It, For Whatever Will Give That Early Home A Familiar, Unmistakable Difference Amidst The Future Widening Of Knowledge.

... We Are Most Of Us Brought Up In The Notion That The Highest Motive For Not Doing A Wrong Is Something Irrespective Of The Beings Who Would Suffer The Wrong.

... Goodness Is Of A Modest Nature, Easily Discouraged, And When Much Elbowed In Early Life By Unabashed Vices, Is Apt To Retire Into Extreme Privacy, So That It Is More Easily Believed In By Those Who Construct A Selfish Old Gentleman Theoretically, Than By Those Who Form The Narrower Judgments Based On His Personal Acquaintance.

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

There Are Many Victories Worse Than A Defeat.

Every Limit Is A Beginning As Well As An Ending.

We Look At The One Little Woman's Face We Love, As We Look At The Face Of Our Mother Earth, And See All Sorts Of Answers To Our Own Yearnings.

One Must Be Poor To Know The Luxury Of Giving!

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.

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.

I Like Breakfast-time Better Than Any Other Moment In The Day. No Dust Has Settled On One's Mind Then, And It Presents A Clear Mirror To The Rays Of Things.

More Helpful Than All Wisdom Is One Draught Of Simple Human Pity That Will Not Forsake Us.

It Is A Common Sentence That Knowledge Is Power; But Who Hath Duly Considered Or Set Forth The Power Of Ignorance? Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down.

And When A Woman's Will Is As Strong As The Man's Who Wants To Govern Her, Half Her Strength Must Be Concealment.

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

Men Outlive Their Love, But They Don’t Outlive The Consequences Of Their Recklessness.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Mother's Love Is At First An Absorbing Delight, Blunting All Other Sensibilities; It Is An Expansion Of The Animal Existence; It Enlarges The Imagined Range For Self To Move In: But In After Years It Can Only Continue To Be Joy On The Same Terms As Other Long-lived Love--that Is, By Much Suppression Of Self, And Power Of Living In The Experience Of Another.

Fancy What A Game Of Chess Would Be If All The Chessmen Had Passions And Intellects, More Or Less Small And Cunning; If You Were Not Only Uncertain About Your Adversary's Men, But A Little Uncertain Also About Your Own. You Would Be Especially Likely To Be Beaten, If You Depended Arrogantly On Your Mathematical Imagination, And Regarded Your Passionate Pieces With Contempt. Yet This Imaginary Chess Is Easy Compared With A Game A Man Has To Play Against His Fellow-men With Other Fellow-men For Instruments.

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.

But Indefinite Visions Of Ambition Are Weak Against The Ease Of Doing What Is Habitual Or Beguilingly Agreeable; And We All Know The Difficulty Of Carrying Out A Resolve When We Secretly Long That It May Turn Out To Be Unnecessary. In Such States Of Mind The Most Incredulous Person Has A Private Leaning Towards Miracle: Impossible To Conceive How Our Wish Could Be Fulfilled, Still - Very Wonderful Things Have Happened!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

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

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

There's Times When The Crockery Seems Alive, An' Flies Out O' Your Hand Like A Bird. It's Like The Glass, Sometimes, 'ull Crack As It Stands. What Is To Be Broke Will Be Broke.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All Honour And Reverence To The Divine Beauty Of Form! Let Us Cultivate It To The Utmost In Men, Women And Children -- In Our Gardens And In Our Houses. But Let Us Love That Other Beauty Too, Which Lies In No Secret Of Proportion But In The Secret Of Deep Human Sympathy.

Those Who Trust Us Educate Us.

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

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.

There's Many A Good Bit O' Work Done With A Sad Heart.

Of All Forms Of Human Error, Prophesy Is The Most Avoidable.

Her Own Misery Filled Her Heart—there Was No Room In It For Other People's Sorrow.

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

Something Better

Our Vanities Differ As Our Noses Do: All Conceit Is Not The Same Conceit, But Varies In Correspondence With The Minutiae Of Mental Make In Which One Of Us Differs From Another.

The Disappointments Of Life Can Never, Any More Than Its Pleasures, Be Estimated Singly; And The Healthiest And Most Agreeable Of Men Is Exposed To That Coincidence Of Various Vexations, Each Heightening The Effect Of The Other, Which May Produce In Him Something Corresponding To The Spontaneous And Externally Unaccountable Moodiness Of The Morbid And Disagreeable.

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Years Seem To Rush By Now, And I Think Of Death As A Fast Approaching End Of A Journey-double And Treble Reason For Loving As Well As Working While It Is Day.

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

The Nature O' Things Doesn't Change, Though It Seems As If One's Own Life Was Nothing But Change.

... Learning To Love Any One Is Like An Increase Of Property, -- It Increases Care, And Brings Many New Fears Lest Precious Things Should Come To Harm.

Precious Things

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

Men And Women Are But Children Of A Larger Growth.

Art Is The Nearest Thing To Life; It Is A Mode Of Amplifying Experience And Extending Our Contact With Our Fellow Men Beyond The Bounds Of Our Personal Lot.

Don't You Meddle With Me, And I Won't Meddle With You.

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.

It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

Say "i Love You" To Those You Love. The Eternal Silence Is Long Enough To Be Silent In, And That Awaits Us All.

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.

One Couldn't Carry On Life Comfortably Without A Little Blindness To The Fact That Everything Has Been Said Better Than We Can Put It Ourselves.

The Light Can Be A Curtain As Well As The Darkness.

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

Somebody Put A Drop Under A Magnifying-glass And It Was All Semicolons And Parentheses.

Magnifying Glass

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

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

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.

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

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

But Faithfulness Can Feed On Suffering, And Knows No Disappointment.

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.

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

Do We Not All Agree To Call Rapid Thought And Noble Impulse By The Name Of Inspiration? After Our Subtlest Analysis Of The Mental Process, We Must Still Say That Our Highest Thoughts And Our Best Deeds Are All Given To Us.

There Are Glances Of Hatred That Stab, And Raise No Cry Of Murder.

It Belongs To Every Large Nature, When It Is Not Under The Immediate Power Of Some Strong Unquestioning Emotion, To Suspect Itself, And Doubt The Truth Of Its Own Impressions, Conscious Of Possibilities Beyond Its Own Horizon.

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.

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

I Don't Want The World To Give Me Anything For My Books Except Money Enough To Save Me From The Temptation To Write Only For Money.

The Strongest Principle Of Growth Lies In The Human Choice.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

All Writing Seems To Me Worse In The State Of Proof Than In Any Other Form. In Manuscript One's Own Wisdom Is Rather Remarkable To One, But In Proof It Has The Effect Of One's Private Furniture Repeated In The Shop Windows. And Then There Is The Sense That The Worst Errors Will Go To Press Unnoticed!

When The Animals Entered The Ark In Pairs, One May Imagine That Allied Species Made Much Private Remark On Each Other, And Were Tempted To Think That So Many Forms Feeding On The Same Store Of Fodder Were Eminently Superfluous, As Tending To Diminish The Rations.

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

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.

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

We Must Find Our Duties In What Comes To Us, Not In What Might Have Been.

When One Is Grateful For Something Too Good For Common Thanks, Writing Is Less Unsatisfactory Than Speech-one Does Not, At Least, Hear How Inadequate The Words Are.

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

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.

Only Those Who Know The Supremacy Of The Intellectual Life──the Life Which Has A Seed Of Ennobling Thought And Purpose Within──can Understand The Grief Of One Who Falls From That Serene Activity Into The Absorbing Soul-wasting Struggle With Worldly Annoyances.

Every Man Who Is Not A Monster, A Mathematician, Or A Mad Philosopher, Is The Slave Of Some Woman Or Other.

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

There Are But Two Sorts Of Government: One Where Men Show Their Teeth At Each Other, And One Where Men Show Their Tongues And Lick The Feet Of The Strongest.

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

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.

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.

Subtle Impressions For Which Words Are Quite Too Coarse A Medium.

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.

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

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

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

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

But, Bless Us, Things May Be Lovable That Are Not Altogether Handsome, I Hope?

There Is No Human Being Who Having Both Passions And Thoughts Does Not Think In Consequences Of His Passions--does Not Find Images Rising In His Mind Which Soothe The Passion With Hope Or Sting It With Dread.

It Is 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

... 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.

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

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?

We Are All Apt To Believe What The World Believes About Us.

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

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfolding. . . Among Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful. . . .

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

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Mohamed ElBaradei

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