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Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible.

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
Simply
Conjecture
Everybody
Allowance
Knowledge
Incompatible
Better
Confident
Thing
Liberal
Liked
Became
Soon

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Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.
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Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions they pass no criticisms.
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How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he's chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him. . . .
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Wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest.
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To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.
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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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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.
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In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.
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Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less.
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I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.
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The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.
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Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: - in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.
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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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The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.
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Even success needs its consolations.
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... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.
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To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.
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Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself it only requires opportunity.
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The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.
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It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.
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