There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness. – George Eliot
What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs? – George Eliot
I desire no future that will break the ties with the past. – George Eliot
It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees. – George Eliot
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his masters commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too personal style. – W. H. Auden