... we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.

In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.

[It is easier] to quell emotion than to incur the consequences of venting it.

It is a fact capable of amiable interpretation that ladies are not the worst disposed towards a new acquaintance of their own sex, because she has points of inferiority.

But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?

And Dorothea..she had no dreams of being praised above other women. Feeling that there was always something better which she might have done if she had only been better and known better, her full nature spent itself in deeds which left no great name on the earth, but the effect of her being on those around her was incalculable. For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and on all those Dorotheas who life faithfully their hidden lives and rest in unvisited tombs. Middlemarch