Quote

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

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All our ignorance brings us closer to death.
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We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.
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When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech-one does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.
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Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.
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It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent - like a carrier pigeon.
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The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.
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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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I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.
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I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.
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The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
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A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest.
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There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration.
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There's nothing but what's bearable as long as a man can work.... The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot.
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All who remember their childhood remember the strange vague sense, when some new experience came, that everything else was going to be changed, and that there would be no lapse into the old monotony.
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Doesn't this quote just call up feelings of comfort and home? Comparing friendship to the nest a bird lives in and builds with loving determination reminds me that having a solid relationship takes work and dedication. And yet, when you succeed in crafting a friendship, you can rest in the comfort it provides.
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The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
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A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.
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Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses.
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Kisses honeyed by oblivion.
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Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.
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