But there are positions which cannot be reached, though there be no physical or material objection in the way. It is the view which the mind takes of a thing which creates the sorrow that arises from it. If the heart were always malleable and the feelings could be controlled, who would permit himself to be tormented by any of the reverses which affection meets? Death would create no sorrow; ingratitude would lose its sting; and the betrayal of love would do no injury beyond that which it might entail upon worldly circumstances. But the heart is not malleable; nor will the feelings admit of such control.

Those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give; but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged! It is arranged, apparently, that the injurer shall be punished, but that the person injured shall not gratify his desire for vengeance.

♥ Middlemarch - George Eliot
Our deeds still travel with us from afar,
And what we have been makes us what we are.

♥ Middlemarch - George Eliot
But of course intention was everything in the question of right and wrong.

♥ Middlemarch - George Eliot [Sir Henry Wotton]
How happy is he born and taught, 
Thar serveth not another's will?
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his only skill?

This man is freed from servile hands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.