For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities –a willing movement of a mans soul with the larger sweep of the worlds forces –a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life. – George Eliot
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. – George Eliot
One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymens miseries is to go and look at their pleasures. – George Eliot
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. – George Eliot
Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else. – Simone Weil