The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimming when once the actions have become a lie.
Conscience is harder than our enemies, knows more, accuses with more nicety.
Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.
Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: it was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying.
Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents towards itself, and makes the whole life its tributary.
A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping.
There are episodes in most men’s lives in which their highest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objects that fill their inward version.
Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference.
Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?
But it is one thing to like defiance, and another thing to like its consequences.
They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had for ever closed behind them.
Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors’ lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.
Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well.
We insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.
Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination.
A kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.
But a good wife – a good unworldly woman – may really help a man, and keep him more independent.
He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, and manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful.
A map was a fine thing to study when you were disposed to think of something else, being made up of names that would turn into a chime if you went back upon them.
If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.