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O The Anguish Of That Thought That We Can Never Atone To Our Dead For The Stinted Affection We Gave Them, For The Light Answers We Returned To Their Plaints Or Their Pleadings, For The Little Reverence We Showed To That Sacred Human Soul That Lived So Close To Us, And Was The Divinest Thing God Had Given Us To Know!

-George Eliot

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O The Anguish Of

George Eliot

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O The Anguish Of That Thought That We Can Never Atone To Our Dead For The Stinted Affection We Gave Them, For The Light Answers We Returned To Their Plaints Or Their Pleadings, For The Little Reverence We Showed To That Sacred Human Soul That Lived So Close To Us, And Was The Divinest Thing God Had Given Us To Know!

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

Kisses Honeyed By Oblivion.

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

When We Are Young We Think Our Troubles A Mighty Business - That The World Is Spread Out Expressly As A Stage For The Particular Drama Of Our Lives And That We Have A Right To Rant And Foam At The Mouth If We Are Crossed. I Have Done Enough Of That In My Time.

Life Is Like Our Game At Whist ... I Don't Enjoy The Game Much, But I Like To Play My Cards Well, And See What Will Be The End Of It.

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

Men And Women Make Sad Mistakes About Their Own Symptoms, Taking Their Vague Uneasy Longings, Sometimes For Genius, Sometimes For Religion, And Oftener Still For A Mighty Love.

There Is No Feeling, Perhaps, Except The Extremes Of Fear And Grief, That Does Not Find Relief In Music,--that Does Not Make A Man Sing Or Play The Better.

Science Is Properly More Scrupulous Than Dogma. Dogma Gives A Charter To Mistake, But The Very Breath Of Science Is A Contest With Mistake, And Must Keep The Conscience Alive.

In All Failures, The Beginning Is Certainly The Half Of The Whole.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Hostesses Who Entertain Much Must Make Up Their Parties As Ministers Make Up Their Cabinets, On Grounds Other Than Personal Liking.

Wit Is A Form Of Force That Leaves The Limbs At Rest.

I Am Not Imposed Upon By Fine Words; I Can See What Actions Mean.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

May I Reach That Purest Heaven - Be To Other Souls The Cup Of Strength In Some Great Agony; Enkindle Generous Ardor, Feed Pure Love, Beget The Smiles That Have No Cruelty. Be The Sweet Presence Of A Good Diffused, And In The Diffusion Ever More Intense! So Shall I Join The Choir Invisible Whose Music Is The Gladness Of The World.

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

Nature Repairs Her Ravages, But Not All. The Uptorn Trees Are Not Rooted Again; The Parted Hills Are Left Scarred; If There Is A New Growth, The Trees Are Not The Same As The Old, And The Hills Underneath Their Green Vesture Bear The Marks Of The Past Rending. To The Eyes That Have Dwelt On The Past, There Is No Thorough Repair.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is Worth Repeating That Powerful Imagination Is Not False Outward Vision, But Intense Inward Representation, And A Creative Energy Constantly Fed By Susceptibility To The Veriest Minutiæ Of Experience, Which It Reproduces And Constructs In Fresh And Fresh Wholes; Not The Habitual Confusion Of Provable Fact With The Fictions Of Fancy And Transient Inclination, But A Breadth Of Ideal Association Which Informs Every Material Object, Every Incidental Fact With Far-reaching Memories And Storied Residues Of Passion, Bringing Into New Light The Less Obvious Relations To Human Existence.

It Is A Sad Weakness In Us, After All, That The Thought Of A Person's Death Consecrates Him Or Her Anew To Us. It Is As If Life Were Not Sacred Too, As If It Were Comparatively A Small Thing To Fail In Love And Reverence To The Brother Or Sister Who Has To Climb The Whole Toilsome Mountain With Us. It Seems As If All Our Tears And Tenderness Were Due To The One Who Is Spared That Hard Journey.

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

A Toddling Little Girl Is A Centre Of Common Feeling Which Makes The Most Dissimilar People Understand Each Other.

They Say Fortune Is A Woman And Capricious. But Sometimes She Is A Good Woman, And Gives To Those Who Merit.

It Is Never Too Late, No Matter How Old You Get Because Anytime Or Any Point In Your Life You Can Always Have A Chance To Make A Difference. You Can Always Make A Change For The Better No Matter What Background You Derived From. You Can Always Do Your Best And Be All That You Can Be Because You Will Always Be Uniquely You. It Is Why It Is Always Wise To Listen To Your Eternal Heart, Your Eternal Instincts, And What It Had Always Strove For And/or To Do Because Really Anybody Can Make A Difference Not Only In Their Own Lives But In The Lives Of Others. It Is Never Too Late To Shine; Never.

It Is Painful To Be Told That Anything Is Very Fine And Not Be Able To Feel That It Is Fine--something Like Being Blind, While People Talk Of The Sky.

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.

We Are Overhasty To Speak As If God Did Not Manifest Himself By Our Silent Feeling, And Make His Love Felt Through Ours.

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

How To Be Happy

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.

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.

What Novelty Is Worth That Sweet Monotony Where Everything Is Known, And Loved Because It Is Known?

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

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.

Lord! Thou Art With Thy People Still; They See Thee In The Night-watches, And Their Hearts Burn Within Them As Thou Talkest With Them By The Way. And Thou Art Near To Those That Have Not Known Thee; Open Their Eyes That They May See Thee--see Thee Weeping Over Them, And Saying, "ye Will Not Come Unto Me That Ye Might Have Life"--see Thee Hanging On The Cross And Saying, "father, Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do"--see Thee As Thou Wilt Come Again In Thy Glory To Judge Them At The Last. Amen.

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

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.

For We All Of Us, Grave Or Light, Get Our Thoughts Entangled In Metaphors, And Act Fatally On The Strength Of Them.

To My Thinking, It Is More Pitiable To Bore Than To Be Bored.

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

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

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

How Could A Man Be Satisfied With A Decision Between Such Alternatives And Under Such Circumstances No More Than He Can Be Satisfied With His Hat, Which He's Chosen From Among Such Shapes As The Resources Of The Age Offer Him. . . .

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

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

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

We Learn Words By Rote, But Not Their Meaning; That Must Be Paid For With Our Life-blood, And Printed In The Subtle Fibres Of Our Nerves.

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

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.

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.

What Loneliness Is More Lonely Than Distrust?

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

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

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.

Primary (the Lds Church's Sunday School For Children) Is Where You Go To Do With Somebody Else's Mother The Things You Would Do With Your Own Mother If She Weren't So Busy Teaching Primary.

Every Limit Is A Beginning As Well As An Ending.

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

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

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.

The First Sense Of Mutual Love Excludes Other Feelings; It Will Have The Soul All To Itself.

One Can Say Everything Best Over A Meal.

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

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.

Play Not With Paradoxes. That Caustic Which You Handle In Order To Scorch Others May Happen To Sear Your Own Fingers And Make Them Dead To The Quality Of Things.

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

All Passion Becomes Strength When It Has An Outlet.

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.

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.

Worldly Faces Never Look So Worldly As At A Funeral.

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

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

I've Never Any Pity For Conceited People, Because I Think They Carry Their Comfort About With Them.

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

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

Exaggeration Is

There Is No Short-cut No Patent Tram-road, To Wisdom. After All The Centuries Of Invention, The Soul's Path Lies Through The Thorny Wilderness Which Must Still Be Trodden In Solitude, With Bleeding Feet, With Sobs For Help, As It Was Trodden By Them Of Old Time.

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

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

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

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.

Imagination Is A Licensed Trespasser: It Has No Fear Of Dogs, But May Climb Over Walls And Peep In At Windows With Impunity.

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.

... 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

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

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

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.

She Thought It Was Part Of The Hardship Of Her Life That There Was Laid Upon Her The Burthen Of Larger Wants Than Others Seemed To Feel – That She Had To Endure This Wide Hopeless Yearning For That Something, Whatever It Was, That Was Greatest And Best On This Earth.

The Best Part Of A Woman's Love Is Worship; But It Is Hard To Her To Be Sent Away With Her Precious Spikenard Rejected, And Her Long Tresses, Too, That Were Let Fall, Ready To Soothe The Wearied Feet.

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

It Seems To Me We Can Never Give Up Longing And Wishing While We Are Thoroughly Alive. There Are Certain Things We Feel To Be Beautiful And Good, And We Must Hunger After Them.

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.

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

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. . . .

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

Surely It Is Not True Blessedness To Be Free Of Sorrow While There Is Sorrow And Sin In The World. Sorrow Is A Part Of Love And Love Does Not Seek To Throw It Off.

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

Power Of Generalizing Gives Men So Much The Superiority In Mistake Over The Dumb Animals.

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

It Seems To Me As A Woman's Face Doesna Want Flowers; It's Almost Like A Flower Itself.... It's Like When A Man's Singing A Good Tune, You Don't Want T' Hear Bells Tinkling And Interfering Wi' The Sound.

We Long For An Affection Altogether Ignorant Of Our Faults. Heaven Has Accorded This To Us In The Uncritical Canine Attachment.

How Can One Ever Do Anything Nobly Christian, Living Among People With Such Petty Thoughts?

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.

When The Soul Is Just Liberated From The Wretched Giant's Bed Of Dogmas On Which It Has Been Racked And Stretched Ever Since It Began To Think, There Is A Feeling Of Exultation And Strong Hope.

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

Finding Yourself

The Scornful Nostril And The High Head Gather Not The Odors That Lie On The Track Of Truth.

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfoldingamong Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful; Whose Distinguished Mind Is A Little Spotted With Commonness; Who Is A Little Pinched Here And Protruberent There With Native Prejudices; Or Whose Better Energies Are Liable To Lapse Down The Wrong Channel Under The Influence Of Transient Solicitations?

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

I Had Some Ambition. I Meant Everything To Be Different With Me. I Thought I Had More Strength And Mastery. But The Most Terrible Obstacles Are Such As Nobody Can See Except Oneself.

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

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.

So Deeply Inherent Is It In This Life Of Ours That Men Have To Suffer For Each Other's Sins, So Inevitably Diffusive Is Human Suffering, That Even Justice Makes Its Victims, And We Can Conceive No Retribution That Does Not Spread Beyond Its Mark In Pulsations Of Unmerited Pain.

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.

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

The Important Work Of Moving The World Forward Does Not Wait To Be Done By Perfect Men.

To The Receptive Soul The River Of Life Pauseth Not, Nor Is Diminished.

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

The Difficult Task Of Knowing Another Soul Is Not For Young Gentlemen Whose Consciousness Is Chiefly Made Up Of Their Own Wishes.

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.

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.

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

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

I Have Always Been Thinking Of The Different Ways In Which Christianity Is Taught, And Whenever I Find One Way That Makes It A Wider Blessing Than Any Other, I Cling To That As The Truest--i Mean That Which Takes In The Most Good Of All Kinds, And Brings In The Most People As Sharers In It. It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

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

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

A Supreme Love, A Motive That Gives A Sublime Rhythm To A Woman's Life, And Exalts Habit Into Partnership With The Soul's Highest Needs, Is Not To Be Had Where And How She Wills.

There Are Many Victories Worse Than A Defeat.

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

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!

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

The Finest Language Is Mostly Made Up Of Simple Unimposing Words.

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.

In Bed Our Yesterdays Are Too Oppressive: If A Man Can Only Get Up, Though It Be But To Whistle Or To Smoke, He Has A Present Which Offers Some Resistance To The Past—sensations Which Assert Themselves Against Tyrannous Memories.

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

It Is Well Known To All Experienced Minds That Our Firmest Convictions Are Often Dependent On Subtle Impressions For Which Words Are Quite Too Coarse A Medium.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

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

Oh, Sir, The Loftiest Hopes On Earth Draw Lots With Meaner Hopes: Heroic Breasts, Breathing Bad Air, Run Risk Of Pestilence; Or, Lacking Lime-juice When They Cross The Line, May Languish With The Scurvy.

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

Though I Am Not Endowed With An Ear To Seize Those Earthly Harmonies, Which To Some Devout Souls Have Seemed, As It Were, The Broken Echoes Of The Heavenly Choir--i Apprehend That There Is A Law In Music, Disobedience Whereunto Would Bring Us In Our Singing To The Level Of Shrieking Maniacs Or Howling Beasts.

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.

Awful Night! Ancestral Mystery Of Mysteries.

And Dorothea..she Had No Dreams Of Being Praised Above Other Women. Feeling That There Was Always Something Better Which She Might Have Done If She Had Only Been Better And Known Better, Her Full Nature Spent Itself In Deeds Which Left No Great Name On The Earth, But The Effect Of Her Being On Those Around Her Was Incalculable. For The Growing Good Of The World Is Partly Dependent On Unhistoric Acts And On All Those Dorotheas Who Life Faithfully Their Hidden Lives And Rest In Unvisited Tombs. Middlemarch

Genius ... Is Necessarily Intolerant Of Fetters.

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.

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

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

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

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

There Is A Chill Air Surrounding Those Who Are Down In The World, And People Are Glad To Get Away From Them, As From A Cold Room.

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.

There Comes A Terrible Moment To Many Souls When The Great Movements Of The World, The Larger Destinies Of Mankind, Which Have Lain Aloof In Newspapers And Other Neglected Reading, Enter Like An Earthquake Into Their Own Lives--when The Slow Urgency Of Growing Generations Turns Into The Tread Of An Invading Army Or The Dire Clash Of Civil War, And Grey Fathers Know Nothing To Seek For But The Corpses Of Their Blooming Sons, And Girls Forget All Vanity To Make Lint And Bandages Which May Serve For The Shattered Limbs Of Their Betrothed Husbands.

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.

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

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

I Am Not Resigned: I Am Not Sure Life Is Long Enough To Learn That Lesson.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Perhaps The Wind Wails So In Winter For The Summers Dead, And All Sad Sounds Are Nature's Funeral Cries For What Has Been And Is Not.

In The Days When The Spinning Wheels Hummed Busily In The Farmhouses--and Even Great Ladies, Clothed In Silk And Thread Lace, Had Their Toy Spinning Wheels Of Polished Oak--there Might Be Seen, In Districts Far Away Among The Lanes, Or Deep In The Bosom Of The Hills, Certain Palled Undersized Men Who, By The Side Of The Brawny Country-folk, Looked Like The Remnants Of A Disinherited Race.

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 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.

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.

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

Our Sense Of Duty Must Often Wait For Some Work Which Shall Take The Place Of Dilettanteism [sic] And Make Us Feel That The Quality Of Our Action Is Not A Matter Of Indifference.

The Golden Moments In The Stream Of Life Rush Past Us, And We See Nothing But Sand; The Angels Come To Visit Us, And We Only Know Them When They Are Gone.

What Greater Thing Is There For Two Human Souls Than To Feel That They Are Joined - To Strengthen Each Other - To Be At One With Each Other In Silent Unspeakable Memories.

Particular Lies May Speak A General Truth.

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.

After All, The True Seeing Is Within.

A Foreman, If He's Got A Conscience, And Delights In His Work, Will Do His Business As Well As If He Was A Partner. I Wouldn't Give A Penny For A Man As 'ud Drive A Nail In Slack Because He Didn't Get Extra Pay For It.

I Love Not To Be Choked With Other Men's Thoughts.

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.

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

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.

What If My Words Were Meant For Deeds.

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

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

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

There's Good Chances And Bad Chances, And Nobody's Luck Is Pulled Only By One String.

What Moments Of Despair That Life Would Ever Be Made Precious To Me By The Consciousness That I Lived To Some Good Purpose! It Was That Sort Of Despair That Sucked Away The Sap Of Half The Hours Which Might Have Been Filled By Energetic Youthful Activity: And The Same Demon Tries To Get Hold Of Me Again Whenever An Old Work Is Dismissed And A New One Is Being Meditated.

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Joseph Barber Lightfoot

Bernhard Langer

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