Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.
George Eliot

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?
George Eliot

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.
George Eliot

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.
George Eliot

That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise.
George Eliot

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.
George Eliot

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.
George Eliot

The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
George Eliot

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
George Eliot

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.
George Eliot

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
George Eliot

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
George Eliot

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
George Eliot

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.
George Eliot

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.
George Eliot

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.
George Eliot

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
George Eliot

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.
George Eliot

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
George Eliot

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.
George Eliot