George Eliot

"How much is what we have felt to what we feel, in the scale that defines manhood."

"Nature will not be hurried."

"Every human being has rights which are not dependent upon opinion."

"The key to a greater understanding is found in the study of history."

"To me, it seemed that loneliness was the worst kind of poverty."

"The growth of the intellect is the gift of action."

"If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence."

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

"The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another."

"Only in the agitated mind of discontent can a noble purpose germinate."

"There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet instinctively looked round to see what other objects the world contains besides that which has been snatched from us."

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life?"

"If we encounter a person of rare intellect, we should ask them what books they read."

"The glorious moments of our life are not so very rare after all; they are rather moments when something new comes into being."

"Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words."

"Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds."

"The capacity of the human mind for excitement and reflection is demonstrably limited."

"To love is to have power over another's happiness."

"The years between childhood and adulthood are perhaps less mysterious in what they produce than in what they pass by."

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

"Blessed is the man who has found his work; let him ask for no other blessedness."

"The mind that is in subjection to its passions cannot comprehend truth."

"Women are not more frivolous than men, only less seriously treated."

"The finest thing we can say about our lives is not what we achieved, but what we became."

"Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do harm."

"A man's repentance is the act of a man who has been found out."

"The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance."

"The key to all knowledge is in the heart that is teachable."

"Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face."

"The small person with a great purpose is stronger than the great person with no purpose."