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Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin?

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
Thoughts
Opinion
Ruin
Much
Threatened
Made
Fabric
Believe
Inward
Men
Believes
Life
Ruins
Reputation

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There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.
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To have suffered much is like knowing many languages. Thou hast learned to understand all.
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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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When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business - that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time.
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If I could only fancy myself clever, it would be better, but to be a failure of Nature and to know it is not a comfortable lot. It is the last lesson one learns, to be contented with one's inferiority -- but it must be learned.
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The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.
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Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless-nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.
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Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!
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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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To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.
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