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“People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why Homer calls them "blameless.”

“It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this sudden manner; everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin life anew.”

“The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant road,–were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.

They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they would never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had forever closed behind them.”

“Maggie's heart went out toward this woman whom she had never liked, and she kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of that new sense which is the gift of sorrow,–that susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the ice-bergs the mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains of affection.”

“When they did meet, she remembered her promise to kiss him, but, as a young lady who had been at a boarding-school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise was void, like so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood;

Philip, caught the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him & thought this sister of Tulliver's seemed a nice little thing,quite unlike her brother; he wished he had a little sister.What was it, he wondered,that made Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence,& unsatisfied beseeching affection.

“The ox–we may venture to assert it on the authority of a great classic–is not given to use his teeth as an instrument of attack, and Tom was an excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable objects in a truly ingenious bovine manner; but he had blundered on Philip's tenderest point, and had caused him as much acute pain as if he had studied the means with the nicest precision and the most envenomed spite.”

“Mrs. Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a great social power, but it is not the power of love; and no other power could win Philip from his personal reserve.”

“Mr. Stelling was convinced that a boy so stupid at signs and abstractions must be stupid at everything else, even if that reverend gentleman could have taught him everything else. It was the practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit non-existent facts;

“Girls can't do Euclid; can they, sir?"

"They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said Mr. Stelling. "They've a great deal of superficial cleverness; but they couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow."

The astronomer who hated women generally caused her so much puzzling speculation that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all astronomers hated women,or whether it was only this particular astronomer.But forestalling his answer,she said,–
I suppose it's all astronomers;because,you know, they live up in high towers,& if the women came there they might talk and hinder them from looking at the stars.
😂😂

“I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than father does."

"Well, you'll be a woman some day," said Tom, "so you needn't talk."

"But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with a toss.”

What do you shake and toss your head now for, you silly? for though her hair was now under a new dispensation,& was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. It makes you look as if you were crazy.
Oh, I can't help it, said Maggie, impatiently.

**Now I can’t help myself too, my breton crossing the eyesight,so tossing every few minutes 😂😂

“Well, my lad, you look rarely! School agrees with you.

Tom wished he had looked rather ill.

I don't think I am well, father, said Tom; I wish you'd ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, I think.

(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been subject.)

If Tom had had a worse disposition,he would certainly have hated the little cherub Laura,but he was too kindhearted a lad for that;there was too much in him of the fibre that turns to true manliness,& to protecting pity for the weak.He hated Mrs. Stelling,& contracted a lasting dislike to pale blond ringlets & broad plaits,as directly associated with haughtiness of manner,& frequent reference to other people's duty

Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish? A woman, with everything provided for her, and allowed to keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with a gig new stuffed and lined at no end o' expense, and provided for when I die beyond anything she could expect–to go on i' this way, biting and snapping like a mad dog! It's beyond everything, as God A 'mighty should ha' made women so.

“A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation.”

“Mr. Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity, which, when disengaged from the wool business, naturally made itself a pathway in other directions. And his second subject of meditation was the "contrairiness" of the female mind, as typically exhibited in Mrs. Glegg.

“Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish, rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know.”

“Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie, shouldn't you like one?" but Tom was deaf.”

“It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization, the sight of a fashionably dressed female in grief. From the sorrow of a Hottentot to that of a woman in large buckram sleeves, with several bracelets on each arm, an architectural bonnet, and delicate ribbon strings, what a long series of gradations!”

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases,& in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side,& swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized society.

It was Tom's step, Maggie heard on the stairs, when her need of love had triumphed over her pride,& she was going down with her swollen eyes & dishevelled hair to beg for pity. her father would stroke her head & say,Never mind,my wench. It is a wonderful subduer,this need of love,this hunger of the heart,as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke,& change the face of the world

“These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.”

“Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom she has otherwise no ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite.”

“We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small family of immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next year's crop.”

Wouldn't a parson be almost too high-learnt to bring up a lad to be a man o' business?My notion o' the parsons was as they'd got a sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight.& that isn't what I want for Tom. I want him to know figures,& write like print,& see into things quick,& know what folks mean,& how to wrap things up in words as aren't actionable.

At the sound of this name,Maggie,who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,with a large book open on her lap,shook her heavy hair back & looked up eagerly.There were few sounds that roused Maggie when she was dreaming over her book,but Tom's name served as well as the shrillest whistle;

“This was a puzzling world, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on an awkward corner.”

“I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual.”