George Gissing Quotes

For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.

The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.

Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.

Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.

Have the courage of your desire.

It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience . . .

I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts.

The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought.

To every man it is decreed: Thou shalt live alone. Happy they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it.

I have the happiness of a passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?

Parks are but pavement disguised with a growth of grass.

In nothing more is the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival-almost one may call it-of afternoon tea...the mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.

It is our duty never to speak ill of others, you know; least of all when we know that to do so will be the cause of much pain and trouble.

One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-doors coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray.... [H]ow delicious is the soft yet penetrating odour which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot!... What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain!

And why should any man who writes, even if he writes things immortal, nurse anger at the world's neglect? Who asked him to publish? Who promised him a hearing? Who has broken faith with him? Your poem, your novel, who bargained with you for it?

Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

Honest winter, snow clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping loom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May - how often has it robbed me of heart and hope.

Literature nowadays is a trade... the successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets.

I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils haricots - those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certified aridites calling themselves human food!

Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice.

Human creatures have a mervellous power of adapting themselves to necessity.