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Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

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
Suffering
Affection
Often
Suffer
Better
Profound
Children
Worse
Thinking
Sacrifice
Thoughts
Entertains
Virtue
Dearer
Justice
Virtues

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It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.
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One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.
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Those bitter sorrows of childhood!-- when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.
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Subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.
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People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.
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What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir James. 'He has one foot in the grave.' 'He means to draw it out again, I suppose.
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Those who trust us educate us.
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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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Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.
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Wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them.
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That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil -- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.
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No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.
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Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing.
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The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.
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Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!
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I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.
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All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women and children -- in our gardens and in our houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion but in the secret of deep human sympathy.
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