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George Eliot Quotes - Page 39

All Quotes Achievement Affection Age Ambition Anger Anxiety Appearance Art Atheism Attitude Autumn Balance Baptism Beauty Belief Blame Caring Character Charity Childhood Children Choices Church Compassion Confession Conscience Consciousness Country Darkness Death Desire Destiny Determination Disappointment Discipline Doubt Duty Earth Education Effort Evil Expectations Failing Failure Fame Family Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Friends Friendship Funeral Funny Genius Giving Giving Up God Goodness Grief Growth Happiness Hardship Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell Heroism History Home Hope Human Nature Hunger Hurt Husband Ignorance Imagination Injury Inspiration Inspirational Integrity Jealousy Journey Joy Judging Judgment Justice Kindness Kissing Knowledge Language Life Listening Literature Love Luck Lying Marriage Memories Morality Morning Motherhood Motivational Music Nature Opportunity Pain Parting Passion Past Patience Peace Perception Personality Perspective Philosophy Poverty Power Prayer Pride Privacy Probability Progress Quality Reading Reality Religion Reputation Running Sadness Selfishness Silence Simplicity Sin Smile Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Struggle Stupidity Success Suffering Summer Sympathy Teaching Temptation Time Tolerance Tragedy Travel Truth Victory Virtue Vision Waiting Wall Water Weakness Wife Wine Winning Wisdom Wit Work Writing Youth

The worst of all hobbies are those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn out of a sack then.

The worst of all hobbies are those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn out of a sack then.

Thinking, People, Hobbies

George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.1227, Wordsworth Editions

The purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.

Honesty, Attitude, Spring

George Eliot (1863). “Romola”, p.112

When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book.

Book, Reading, Men

George Eliot (2010). “Middlemarch”, p.305, Lulu.com

Brothers are so unpleasant.

Brother

George Eliot (1873). “Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. By George Eliot ....”, p.108

When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.

Thinking, Animal, May

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.222, Penguin

But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbours! We judge from our own desires, and our neighbours themselves are not always open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs.

Judging, Desire, Paradise

George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.720, Wordsworth Editions

We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.

Names, People, Littles

George Eliot (2004). “Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life”, p.429, Broadview Press

Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? [...] The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.

Witty, Religious, Real

George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6957, Delphi Classics

A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.

Opinion, Cynicism, Fellows

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.76, Penguin

Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.

Order, Chaos, Harmony

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.233, Penguin

Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.

Girl, Men, Thinking

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.189, Penguin

We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.

Our World, Discovery, Facts

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.223, Penguin

If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.

Men, Littles, New Roads

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch”, p.693, Booklassic

Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something even awful in the nearness it brings. Even if we loved someone else better than - than those we were married to, it would be no use. I mean, marriage drinks up all our power of giving or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know it may be very dear, but it murders our marriage, and then the marriage stays with us like a murder, and everything else is gone.

Mean, Giving, Would Be

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life──the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within──can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

Grief, Struggle, Fall

People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.

Thinking, People, Neighbor

George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2693, Delphi Classics

The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.

Memories, Mood, Scenery

George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.722, Wordsworth Editions

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer --committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

Peace, Morning, Pain

"Felix Holt, the Radical". Book by George Eliot. Introductory chapter, 1866.

If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment.

Views, Perfect, Looks

George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.1166, Wordsworth Editions

So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.

Pain, Men, Justice

George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6060, Delphi Classics

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.

Thinking, Earthquakes, Hopeful

George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2528, Delphi Classics

How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?

Christian, Pride, People

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.34, Penguin

It’s rather a strong check to one’s self-complacency to find how much of one’s right doing depends on not being in want of money.

Strong, Self, Temptation

George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2614, Delphi Classics

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character.

Change, Nature, Believe

George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.498, Penguin

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!

Best Friend, Friendship, Spring

George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.438

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