George Eliot

Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence.

So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

For character too is a process and an unfolding. . . among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful. . . .

Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so . . .

There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.

Best friend, my wellspring in the wilderness!

Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.