To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

Man may content himself with the applause of the world and the homage paid to his intellect, but woman's heart has holier idols.

Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks.

After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.

Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead.

We have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.

There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.