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I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.

George Eliot

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George Eliot
Age: 61 †
Born: 1819
Born: November 22
Died: 1880
Died: December 22
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
Mary Anne Evans
Mary Ann Evans
Marian Evans
Mary Anne Evans Cross
Mary Anne Cross
Belief
Honourable
Wrong
Shameful
Heaven
Steam
Society
Ruling
Tell
Engines
Power
Greatest
Right
Opinion
Work
Public

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We could never have loved the earth so well if we had no childhood in it if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass . . .
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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?
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It is time the clergy are told that thinking men, after a close examination of that doctrine, pronounce it to be subversive of true moral development and, therefore, positively noxious.
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It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us as if life were not sacred too.
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Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.
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There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.
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Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning.
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Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?
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No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.
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Much of our waking experience is but a dream in the daylight.
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In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.
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That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow.
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Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.
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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.
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Unhappily the habit of being offensive 'without meaning it' leads usually to a way of making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being amiable without meaning it.
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Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
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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.
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You may try — but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl.
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The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.
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