George Eliot

"Excellence encourages one about life generally it shows the spiritual wealth of the world."

"Our deeds still travel with us from afar and what we have been makes us what we are."

"Tis what I love determines how I love."

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice."

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

"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."

"What secular avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could not get him an ‘appointment’) which was at once gentlemanly, lucrative, and to be followed without special knowledge?"

"It is just that I don’t know how I could live without the hope of her. It would be like learning to live with wooden legs."

"It's but little good you'll go a-water-ing the last year's crop."

"Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through."

"Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music."

"College mostly makes people like bladders—just good for nothing but t’ hold the stuff as is poured into ‘em."