George Eliot

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

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.