It's no trifle at her time at her time of life to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.
George EliotSpeech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.
George EliotAny coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.
George EliotNo one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.
George Eliot