Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.

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

I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha been left to the men.

A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children - always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good.

It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.