George Eliot

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

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.

Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite.

If you please to take the privilege o' sitting down.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?