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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!

-George Eliot

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One Has To Spend

George Eliot

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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!

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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.

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

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.

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.

The Strongest Principle Of Growth Lies In The Human Choice.

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

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

In The First Moments When We Come Away From The Presence Of Death, Every Other Relation To The Living Is Merged, To Our Feeling, In The Great Relation Of A Common Nature And A Common Destiny.

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

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

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

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

A Perverted Moral Judgment Belongs To The Dogmatic System.

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

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

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.

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

The Happiest Women, Like The Happiest Nations, Have No History.

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.

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

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

We Have All Got To Exert Ourselves A Little To Keep Sane, And Call Things By The Same Names As Other People Call Them By.

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

In Every Parting There Is An Image Of Death.

Teach Love, For That Is What You Are.

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.

There Is No Private Life Which Has Not Been Determined By A Wider Public Life.

No One Who Has Ever Known What It Is To Lose Faith In A Fellow-man Whom He Has Profoundly Loved And Reverenced, Will Lightly Say That The Shock Can Leave The Faith In The Invisible Goodness Unshaken. With The Sinking Of High Human Trust, The Dignity Of Life Sinks Too; We Cease To Believe In Our Own Better Self, Since That Also Is Part Of The Common Nature Which Is Degraded In Our Thought; And All The Finer Impulses Of The Soul Are Dulled.

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

Human Experience Is Usually Paradoxical.

Human Experience

Religious Ideas Have The Fate Of Melodies, Which, Once Set Afloat In The World, Are Taken Up By All Sorts Of Instruments, Some Of Them Woefully Coarse, Feeble, Or Out Of Tune, Until People Are In Danger Of Crying Out That The Melody Itself Is Detestable.

...there's Never A Garden In All The Parish But What There's Endless Waste In It For Want O' Somebody As Could Use Everything Up. It's What I Think To Myself Sometimes, As There Need Nobody Run Short O' Victuals If The Land Was Made The Most On, And There Was Never A Morsel But What Could Find It's Way To A Mouth.

To Act With Doubleness Towards A Man Whose Own Conduct Was Double, Was So Near An Approach To Virtue That It Deserved To Be Called By No Meaner Name Than Diplomacy.

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

Dark The Night, With Breath All Flowers, And Tender Broken Voice That Fills With Ravishment The Listening Hours,-- Whisperings, Wooings, Liquid Ripples, And Soft Ring-dove Cooings In Low-toned Rhythm That Love's Aching Stills! Dark The Night Yet Is She Bright, For In Her Dark She Brings The Mystic Star, Trembling Yet Strong, As Is The Voice Of Love, From Some Unknown Afar.

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

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

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

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

Poetry And Art And Knowledge Are Sacred And Pure.

There Is Nothing That Will Kill A Man So Soon As Having Nobody To Find Fault With But Himself.

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.

It Is A Common Enough Case, That Of A Man Being Suddenly Captivated By A Woman Nearly The Opposite Of His Ideal.

Anger Seek It Prey,-- Something To Tear With Sharp-edged Tooth And Claw, Like Not To Go Off Hungry, Leaving Love To Feast On Milk And Honeycomb At Will.

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

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

In The Schoolroom Her Quick Mind Had Taken Readily That Strong Starch Of Unexplained Rules And Disconnected Facts Which Saves Ignorance From Any Painful Sense Of Limpness.

To The Old, Sorrow Is Sorrow; To The Young, It Is Despair.

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

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

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.

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

Destiny Stands By Sarcastic With Our Dramatis Personae Folded In Her Hand.

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

But How Little We Know What Would Make Paradise For Our Neighbours! We Judge From Our Own Desires, And Our Neighbours Themselves Are Not Always Open Enough Even To Throw Out A Hint Of Theirs.

It Had Already Occurred To Him That Books Were Stuff, And That Life Was Stupid.

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

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.

Particular Lies May Speak A General Truth.

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

It's Well Known There's Always Two Sides, If No More.

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

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.

Keep True, Never Be Ashamed Of Doing Right.

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

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

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.

That's What A Man Wants In A Wife, Mostly; He Wants To Make Sure One Fool Tells Him He's Wise.

The Wrong That Rouses Our Angry Passions Finds Only A Medium In Us; It Passes Through Us Like A Vibration, And We Inflict What We Have Suffered.

I've Always Felt That Your Belongings Have Never Been On A Level With You.

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.

What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of A Motive.

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.

They The Royal-hearted Women Are Who Nobly Love The Noblest, Yet Have Grace For Needy Suffering Lives In Lowliest Place, Carrying A Choicer Sunlight In Their Smile, The Heavenliest Ray That Pitieth The Vile.

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

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

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

I Flutter All Ways, And Fly In None.

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.

... One's Own Faults Are Always A Heavy Chain To Drag Through Life And One Can't Help Groaning Under The Weight Now And Then.

Man Finds His Pathways: At First They Were Foot-tracks, As Those Of The Beast In The Wilderness; Now They Are Swift And Invisible: His Thought Dives Through The Ocean, And His Wishes Thread The Air: Has He Found All The Pathways Yet? What Reaches Him, Stays With Him, Rules Him: He Must Accept It, Not Knowing Its Pathway.

Anger And Jealousy Can No More Bear To Lose Sight Of Their Objects Than Love.

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

If Art Does Not Enlarge Men's Sympathies, It Does Nothing Morally.

It Was Not That She Was Out Of Temper, But That The World Was Not Equal To The Demands Of Her Fine Organism.

Grant Folly's Prayers That Hinder Folly's Wish, And Serve The Ends Of Wisdom.

The Darkest Night That Ever Fell Upon The Earth Never Hid The Light, Never Put Out The Stars. It Only Made The Stars More Keenly, Kindly Glancing, As If In Protest Against The Darkness.

Life Began With Waking Up And Loving My Mother's Face.

A Proud Woman Who Has Learned To Submit Carries All Her Pride To The Reinforcement Of Her Submission, And Looks Down With Severe Superiority On All Feminine Assumption As Unbecoming.

The Fact Is, Both Callers And Work Thicken - The Former Sadly Interfering With The Latter.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Affection Is The Broadest Basis Of A Good Life.

It Is Not True That Love Makes All Things Easy; It Makes Us Choose What Is Difficult.

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

Nice Distinctions Are Troublesome. It Is So Much Easier To Say That A Thing Is Black, Than To Discriminate The Particular Shade Of Brown, Blue, Or Green, To Which It Really Belongs. It Is So Much Easier To Make Up Your Mind That Your Neighbour Is Good For Nothing, Than To Enter Into All The Circumstances That Would Oblige You To Modify That Opinion.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Our Consciences Are Not All Of The Same Pattern.

A Good Solid Bit Of Work Lasts.

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?

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music ... The Rounded Neck, The Dimpled Arm, Move Us By Something More Than Their Prettiness--by Their Close Kinship With All We Have Known Of Tenderness And Peace.

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.

Falsehood Is Easy, Truth So Difficult.

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

Magnifying Glass

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

What Are A Handful Of Reasonable Men Against A Crowd With Stones In Their Hands?

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

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

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

I Think Cheerfulness Is A Fortune In Itself.

A Prig Is A Fellow Who Is Always Making You A Present Of His Opinions.

Society Never Made The Preposterous Demand That A Man Should Think As Much About His Own Qualifications For Making A Charming Girl Happy As He Thinks Of Hers For Making Himself Happy.

There Is A Great Deal Of Unmapped Country Within Us.

The Intensest Form Of Hatred Is That Rooted In Fear.

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

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.

"heaven Help Us," Said The Old Religion; The New One, From Its Very Lack Of That Faith, Will Teach Us All The More To Help One Another.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Inclination Snatches Arguments To Make Indulgence Seem Judicious Choice.

The Tendency Toward Good In Human Nature Has A Force Which No Creed Can Utterly Counteract, And Which Insures The Ultimate Triumph Of That Tendency Over All Dogmatic Perversions.

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

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.

When You've Been Used To Doing Things, And They've Been Taken Away From You, It's As If Your Hands Had Been Cut Off, And You Felt The Fingers As Are Of No Use To You.

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.

To Be A Poet Is To Have A Soul So Quick To Discern, That No Shade Of Quality Escapes It, And So Quick To Feel, That Discernment Is But A Hand Playing With Finely-ordered Variety On The Chords Of Emotion--a Soul In Which Knowledge Passes Instantaneously Into Feeling, And Feeling Flashes Back As A New Organ Of Knowledge.

All Things Journey: Sun And Moon, Morning, Noon, And Afternoon, Night And All Her Stars; 'twixt The East And Western Bars Round They Journey, Come And Go! We Go With Them!

How Lovely The Little River Is, With Its Dark Changing Wavelets! It Seems To Me Like A Living Companion While I Wander Along The Bank, And Listen To Its Low, Placid Voice.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had Had No Childhood In It.

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.

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

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

Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It.

Among The Blessings Of Love There Is Hardly One More Exquisite Than The Sense That In Uniting The Beloved Life To Ours We Can Watch Over Its Happiness, Bring Comfort Where Hardship Was, And Over Memories Of Privation And Suffering Open The Sweetest Fountains Of Joy.

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.

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.

A Good Horse Makes Short Miles.

What To One Man Is The Virtue Which He Has Sunk Below The Possibility Of Aspiring To, Is To Another The Backsliding By Which He Forfeits His Spiritual Crown.

Brothers Are So Unpleasant.

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

There Are Many Victories Worse Than A Defeat.

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

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

Nothing At Times Is More Expressive Than Silence.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But Also To Be Told That I Am Loved. I Am Not Sure That You Are Of The Same Mind. But The Realm Of Silence Is Large Enough Beyond The Grave. This Is The World Of Light And Speech, And I Shall Take Leave To Tell You That You Are Very Dear.

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

If We Had A Keen Vision And Feeling Of All Ordinary Human Life, It Would Be Like Hearing The Grass Grow And The Squirrel's Heart Beat, And We Should Die Of That Roar Which Lies On The Other Side Of Silence.

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

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

A Medical Man Likes To Make Psychological Observations, And Sometimes In The Pursuit Of Such Studies Is Too Easily Tempted Into Momentous Prophecy Which Life And Death Easily Set At Nought.

Saints And Martyrs Had Never Interested Maggie So Much As Sages And Poets.

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.

The Impulse To Confession Almost Always Requires The Presence Of A Fresh Ear And A Fresh Heart; And In Our Moments Of Spiritual Need, The Man To Whom We Have No Tie But Our Common Nature, Seems Nearer To Us Than Mother, Brother, Or Friend. Our Daily Familiar Life Is But A Hiding Of Ourselves From Each Other Behind A Screen Of Trivial Words And Deeds, And Those Who Sit With Us At The Same Hearth, Are Often The Farthest Off From The Deep Human Soul Within Us, Full Of Unspoken Evil And Unacted Good.

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

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.

That Is The Bitterest Of All,--to Wear The Yoke Of Our Own Wrong-doing.

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.

Obligation May Be Stretched Till It Is No Better Than A Brand Of Slavery Stamped On Us When We Were Too Young To Know Its Meaning.

One Can Say Everything Best Over A Meal.

Here Undoubtedly Lies The Chief Poetic Energy: - In The Force Of Imagination That Pierces Or Exalts The Solid Fact, Instead Of Floating Among Cloud-pictures.

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

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.

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.

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

The Most Solid Comfort One Can Fall Back Upon Is The Thought That The Business Of One's Life Is To Help In Some Small Way To Reduce The Sum Of Ignorance, Degradation And Misery On The Face Of This Beautiful Earth.

These Fellow-mortals, Every One, Must Be Accepted As They Are: You Can Neither Straighten Their Noses, Nor Brighten Their Wit, Nor Rectify Their Dispositions; And It Is These People-amongst Whom Your Life Is Passed-that It Is Needful You Should Tolerate, Pity, And Love: It Is These More Or Less Ugly, Stupid, Inconsistent People Whose Movements Of Goodness You Should Be Able To Admire-for Whom You Should Cherish All Possible Hopes, All Possible Patience.

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!

No Man Can Be Wise On An Empty Stomach.

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

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.

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

Knightly Love Is Blent With Reverence As Heavenly Air Is Blent With Heavenly Blue.

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

The Sense Of An Entailed Disadvantage - The Deformed Foot Doubtfully Hidden By The Shoe, Makes A Restlessly Active Spiritual Yeast, And Easily Turns A Self-centered, Unloving Nature Into An Ishmaelite.

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

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

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Haste Makes Waste

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

There Are Two Ways Of Speaking An Audience Will Always Like: One Is, To Tell Them What They Don't Understand; And The Other Is, To Tell Them What They're Used To.

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.

...though There's Reasons In Things As Nobody Knows On---- That's Pretty Much What I've Made Out; Yet Some Folks Are So Wise They'll Find You Fifty Reasons Straight Off, And All The While The Real Reason's Winking At 'em In The Corner, And They Niver See't.

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

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.

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