It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because ones own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care. – George Eliot
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. – George Eliot
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. – George Eliot
Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience. – Marcus Tullius Cicero