George Eliot

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

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

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.

A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.

Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to voices within. . . .

What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.

A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.