Top 797 George Eliot Quotes (Updated June 2023)

Explore a treasure trove of wisdom and insight from George Eliot through their most impactful and thought-provoking quotes and sayings. Broaden your horizons with their inspiring words and share these beautiful quote pictures from George Eliot with your friends and followers on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog - all free of charge. Delve into our collection of the top 797 George Eliot quotes, handpicked for you to discover and share with others.

Life's a vast seaThat does its mighty errand without fail,Painting in unchanged strength though waves are changing. By George Eliot

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty. By George Eliot

The best travel is that which one can take by one's own fireside. In memory or imagination. By George Eliot

So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore. By George Eliot

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. By George Eliot

History, we know, is apt to repeat itself. By George Eliot

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. By George Eliot

I'd sooner have one real grief on my mind than twenty false. It's better to know one's robbed than to think one's going to be murdered. By George Eliot

If you put him a-horseback on politics, I warn you of the consequences. It was all very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas. By George Eliot

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. By George Eliot

Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. By George Eliot

I trust you as holy men trust God; you could do nought that was not pure and loving, though the deed might pierce me unto death. By George Eliot

My life is too short, and God's work is too great for me to think of making a home for myself in this world. By George Eliot

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. By George Eliot

John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world. By George Eliot

If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. By George Eliot

They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had for ever closed behind them. By George Eliot

No matter whether failure came A thousand different times, For one brief moment of success, Life rang its golden chimes. By George Eliot

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. By George Eliot

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through. By George Eliot

Hetty did not understand how anybody could be very fond of middle-aged people. And By George Eliot

The secret of our emotions never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past. By George Eliot

Women know no perfect love:Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong;Man clings because the being whom he lovesIs weak and needs him. By George Eliot

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better. By George Eliot

Men
Women

Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning. By George Eliot

If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wineglass to the light and look judicial. By George Eliot

sympathy is but a living again through our own past in a new form, By George Eliot

I shall never forget you. I have never forgotten anyone whom I once knew. My life has never been crowded, and seems not likely to be so. By George Eliot

Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability? By George Eliot

Who with repentance is not satisfied, is not of heaven, nor earth. By George Eliot

I shall do everything it becomes me to do. By George Eliot

The higher life begins for us ... when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. By George Eliot

It is not true that love makes all things easy, it makes us chose things that are difficult. By George Eliot

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know. By George Eliot

If we could hear the squirrel's heartbeat, the sound of the grass growing, we should die of that roar. By George Eliot

Even much stronger mortals than Fred Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the being they love best. By George Eliot

A woman mixed of such fine elementsThat were all virtue and religion deadShe'd make them newly, being what she was. By George Eliot

We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves. By George Eliot

We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours. By George Eliot

Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendos. By George Eliot

The nature o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. By George Eliot

Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than leave it him in your will. By George Eliot

Sympathetic people often don't communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths. By George Eliot

There's things to put up wi' in ivery place, an' you may change an' change an' not better yourself when all's said an' done. By George Eliot

You are a poem--and that is to be the best part of a poet--what makes up thepoet's consciousness in his best moods. By George Eliot

What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the best judges? By George Eliot

when the people have made up their mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man - they only want a vote. By George Eliot

It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow. By George Eliot

I never had any preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. By George Eliot

Some folks' tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside. By George Eliot

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism. By George Eliot

It is just that I don't know how I could live without the hope of her. It would be like learning to live with wooden legs. By George Eliot

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best. By George Eliot

A woman may get to love by degrees - the best fire does not flare up the soonest. By George Eliot

People who seem to enjoy their ill-temper have a way of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting privations on themselves. By George Eliot

The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world. By George Eliot

I cherish my childish lovesthe memory of that warm little nest where my affections were fledged. By George Eliot

But is it what we love, or how we love,That makes true good? By George Eliot

She had forgotten his faults as we forgetthe sorrows of our departed childhood. By George Eliot

We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves By George Eliot

That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. By George Eliot

i am always bored." (gwendolen harleth) By George Eliot

As leopard feels at home with leopard. By George Eliot

I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband. By George Eliot

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present. By George Eliot

Human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow. By George Eliot

Subtract from the New Testament the miraculous and highly impossible, and what will be the remainder? By George Eliot

Notions and scruples were like spilt needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating. By George Eliot

What can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? By George Eliot

Learning to love any one is like an increase of property, it increases care, and brings many new fears lest precious things should come to harm. By George Eliot

It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too. By George Eliot

We get a deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the money to spend. By George Eliot

Don't seem to he on the lookout for crows, else you'll set other people watching. By George Eliot

The beauty of a lovely woman is like music. By George Eliot

We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. By George Eliot

Dorothea, he said to himself, was for ever enthroned in his soul: no other woman could sit higher than her footstool ... By George Eliot

Aye, aye, that's the way wi' thee: thee allays makes a peck o' thy own words out o' a pint o' the Bible's By George Eliot

And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment. By George Eliot

Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years. By George Eliot

A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them. By George Eliot

Your mind is a sort of world to me: you can tell me all I want to know. I think I should never be tired of being with you. By George Eliot

All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet. By George Eliot

In the man whose childhood has known caresses and kindness, there is always a fiber of memory that can be touched to gentle issues. By George Eliot

A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories By George Eliot

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. By George Eliot

We have all our secret sins; and if we knew ourselves we should not judge each other harshly. By George Eliot

As to his religious notions - why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. By George Eliot

In our instinctive rebellion against pain, we are children again, and demand an active will to wreak our vengeance on. By George Eliot

the wisest of us must be beguiled in this way sometimes, and must think both better and worse of people than they deserve. Nature By George Eliot

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. By George Eliot

The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return. By George Eliot

Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat. By George Eliot

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. By George Eliot

But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests me more in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin. If By George Eliot

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course. By George Eliot

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face. By George Eliot

Happy husbands and wives can hear each other say the same thing over and over again without being tired. By George Eliot

I went into science a great deal myself at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can let nothing alone. By George Eliot

One has to spend many years in learning how to be happy. By George Eliot

Gwendolen would not have liked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgust to be on her side. By George Eliot

It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree. By George Eliot

When a workman knows the use of his tools, he can make a door as well as a window. By George Eliot

Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. By George Eliot

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult. By George Eliot

You youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback. By George Eliot

I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief. By George Eliot

Trouble's made us kin. By George Eliot

Melodies die out, like the pipe of Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them. By George Eliot

Miss Brooke's large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. By George Eliot

Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know, said Mr. Brooke, By George Eliot

Selfish - a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice. By George Eliot

...with the fine instinct of a lover, he felt that it would be best for her to hear his voice before she saw him. By George Eliot

Say "I love you" to those you love. The eternal silence is long enough to be silent in, and that awaits us all. By George Eliot

We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves. By George Eliot

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? By George Eliot

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult to others? By George Eliot

Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it. By George Eliot

Cushion
Miss

do what we will, it's only making use o' the sperrit and the powers that ha' been given to us. And By George Eliot

No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted. By George Eliot

Was never true love loved in vain, For truest love is highest gain. By George Eliot

sleep comes to the perplexed - if the perplexed are only weary enough. But By George Eliot

For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. By George Eliot

Instead of getting a soft fence against the cold, shadowy, unapplausive audience of his life, had he only given it a more substantial presence? By George Eliot

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal. By George Eliot

I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid. By George Eliot

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous. By George Eliot

On the other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failings of men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. By George Eliot

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet. By George Eliot

In bitter manuscript remarks on other men's notions about solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight. By George Eliot

That's the way with 'em all: it's as if they thought the world 'ud be new-made because they're to be married. By George Eliot

I thirsted for the unknown: the thirst is gone. O God, let me stay with the known, and be weary of it: I am content. By George Eliot

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old. By George Eliot

There is so much to read and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger. By George Eliot

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. By George Eliot

Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile. By George Eliot

Well, well, my boy, if good luck knocks at your door, don't you put your head out at window and tell it to be gone about its business, that's all. By George Eliot

'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio. By George Eliot

That golden sky, which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest. By George Eliot

All our ignorance brings us closer to death. By George Eliot

It's no use filling your pocket with money if you have got a hole in the corner. By George Eliot

One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves. By George Eliot

A good horse makes short miles. By George Eliot

Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later. When God Almighty wills it, our secrets are found out. By George Eliot

There's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water. By George Eliot

There is heroism even in the circles of hell for fellow-sinners who cling to each other in the fiery whirlwind and never recriminate. By George Eliot

In a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and blue eyes for a heaven. By George Eliot

It is in the nature of foolish reasonings to seem good to the foolish reasoner. By George Eliot

One's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then. By George Eliot

He held it one of the prettiest attitudes of the feminine mind to adore a man's pre-eminence without too precise a knowledge of what it consisted in. By George Eliot

No man can be wise on an empty stomach. By George Eliot

As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men. By George Eliot

The circumstances would always be stronger than his assertion. And By George Eliot

When gratitude has become a matter of reasoning there are many ways of escaping from its bonds. By George Eliot

when a man's said what he means, he'd better stop, for th' ale 'ull be none the better for stannin'. An By George Eliot

I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all the happiness. By George Eliot

I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand. By George Eliot

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. By George Eliot

There comes a moment when the soul must have no guide but the voice within it. By George Eliot

Was something very new and strange in his life that these few words of trust from a woman should be so much to him. By George Eliot

But womanly, I hope, said Mrs. Garth, half suspecting that Mrs. Casaubon might not hold the true principle of subordination. By George Eliot

Yes, said Mr. Casaubon, with that peculiar pitch of voice which makes the word half a negative. By George Eliot

Where you have friends you should not go to inns. By George Eliot

Inns
Friends

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being. By George Eliot

How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends! By George Eliot

I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them.''The time will come, dear, the time will come. By George Eliot

Under the vague dullness of the gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object and finds it in the privation of an untried good. By George Eliot

Still - it could not be fairly called wooing a woman to tell her that he would never woo her. It must be admitted to be a ghostly kind of wooing. By George Eliot

Music sweeps by me as a messenger - Carrying a message that is not for me By George Eliot

If a woman's young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks all the better for her being plainly dressed. By George Eliot

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness! By George Eliot

Breed is stronger than pasture. By George Eliot

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

He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself ... By George Eliot

I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone. By George Eliot

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

Things look dim to old folks: they'd need have some young eyes about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the same as it used to be. By George Eliot

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment. By George Eliot

Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination. By George Eliot

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

Keep true. Never be ashamed of doing right. Decide what you think is right and stick to it. By George Eliot

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life. By George Eliot

Life is like a game of whist. I don't enjoy the game much; but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it. By George Eliot

true love for a good woman is a great thing, Susan. It shapes many a rough fellow. By George Eliot

Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals. By George Eliot

What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. By George Eliot

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life. By George Eliot

Souls live on in perpetual echoes. By George Eliot

The gods of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots. By George Eliot

While the heart beats, bruise itit is your only opportunity By George Eliot

[It is easier] to quell emotion than to incur the consequences of venting it. By George Eliot

Wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest. By George Eliot

Justice is like the kingdom of Godit is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning. By George Eliot

I am not resigned: I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson. By George Eliot

I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me. By George Eliot

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world. By George Eliot

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder. By George Eliot

Genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humilty, but in a power to making or do, not anything in general, but something in particular. By George Eliot

A husband would not let you have your plans. By George Eliot

It is not true that a man's intellectual power is, like the strength of a timber beam, to be measured by its weakest point. By George Eliot

That sort of reputation which precedes performance [is] often the larger part of a man's fame. By George Eliot

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions. By George Eliot

The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant ... By George Eliot

Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life By George Eliot

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

We can never give up longing and wishing while we are throughly alive By George Eliot

The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself. By George Eliot

There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room. By George Eliot

Even in 1831 Lowick was at peace, not more agitated by Reform than by the solemn tenor of the Sunday sermon. The By George Eliot

It's them as take advantage that get advantage I' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em. By George Eliot

It's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient. By George Eliot

Folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there's anything to be done. By George Eliot

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion. By George Eliot

There's nothing kills a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself. By George Eliot

Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well. By George Eliot

I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like. By George Eliot

Dislike

All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other. By George Eliot

It is the way with half the truth amidst which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that are never born into sound. By George Eliot

Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far, The voice divine of human loyalty. By George Eliot

The brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge. By George Eliot

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact. By George Eliot

You must mind and not lower the Church in people's eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing. By George Eliot

Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth; we are saved by making the future present to ourselves. By George Eliot

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity. By George Eliot

A suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes. By George Eliot

You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. By George Eliot

We judge other according to results; how else?not knowing the process by which results are arrived at. By George Eliot

We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence. By George Eliot

Those who trust us educate us. By George Eliot

The pride of the body is a barrier against the gifts that purify the soul. By George Eliot

The light can be a curtain as well as the darkness. By George Eliot

But we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance. By George Eliot

It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks By George Eliot

A vigorous young mind not overbalanced by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its own powers with interest. By George Eliot

There are robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer. By George Eliot

So to live is heaven; to make undying music in the world. By George Eliot

I don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money. By George Eliot

The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers. By George Eliot

Wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them. By George Eliot

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side. By George Eliot

Happily she never attempted to joke, and this perhaps was the most decisive mark of her cleverness By George Eliot

It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. By George Eliot

To men who only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is disgrace. By George Eliot

One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good. By George Eliot

Your dunce who can't do his sums always has a taste for the infinite. By George Eliot

What people do who go into politics I can't think; it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres. By George Eliot

Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship? By George Eliot

I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets. By George Eliot

To an old memory like mine the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep. By George Eliot

All things except reason and order are possible with a mob. By George Eliot

A woman's lot is made for her by the love she accepts. By George Eliot

It is a very good quality in a man to have a trout-stream. By George Eliot

You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I will never have another. By George Eliot

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures. By George Eliot

I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate ... By George Eliot

The red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. Not By George Eliot

Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation. By George Eliot

The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots. By George Eliot

Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough. By George Eliot

I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after houror else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing. By George Eliot

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses. By George Eliot

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. By George Eliot

A kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition. By George Eliot

She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early as possible. By George Eliot

There is a sort of human paste that when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder shape. By George Eliot

Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summers dead, And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries For what has been and is not. By George Eliot

Human experience is usually paradoxical, if that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy. By George Eliot

Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk in dirty places. By George Eliot

As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church steeple minds the rooks cawing about it. By George Eliot

Thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead. By George Eliot

Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity. By George Eliot

Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with. By George Eliot

The law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes depend on them. By George Eliot

Religion, like all things, begins with self, And naught is known, until one knows himself. By George Eliot

When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her attributesone is conscious of her presence. By George Eliot

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief. By George Eliot

What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. By George Eliot

The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation, as the moment of finding an idea. By George Eliot

People who write finely must not expect to be left in repose; they will be molested with thanks, at least. By George Eliot

In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure By George Eliot

Time, like money, is measured by our needs. By George Eliot

Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right, but imputed to man they may both be true." - Rasselas. By George Eliot

What is your religion? I mean-not what you know about religion but the belief that helps you most? By George Eliot

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what we imagine might have been. By George Eliot

Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you. By George Eliot

Meddle

Perhaps we don't always discriminate between sense and nonsense. By George Eliot

people who have pleasant homes get indoor enjoyments that they would never think of but for the rain. If By George Eliot

There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good. By George Eliot

Soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof. By George Eliot

There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence. By George Eliot

The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality. By George Eliot

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? By George Eliot

It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable By George Eliot

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress. By George Eliot

But faithfulness can feed on suffering,And knows no disappointment. By George Eliot

I've always mistrusted that sort o' learning as leaves folks foolish and unreasonable about business. By George Eliot

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. By George Eliot

neighbourly kindness is among those things that are the more precious the older they get. Indeed, By George Eliot

Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. By George Eliot

as I hardly know where I am, with what By George Eliot

It's ill guessing what the bats are flying after. By George Eliot

"Abroad," that large home of ruined reputations. By George Eliot

Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty. By George Eliot

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause. By George Eliot

It's an uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the shafts of disease. By George Eliot

No anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. By George Eliot

The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence. By George Eliot

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate. By George Eliot

It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crops By George Eliot

The progress of the world can certainly never come at all save by the modified action of the individual beings who compose the world. By George Eliot

There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart. By George Eliot

Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit. By George Eliot

Joy is the best of wine. By George Eliot

Joy
Wine

All men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter. By George Eliot

I am not quite sure whether clever men ever dance. By George Eliot

A man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow. By George Eliot

Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing. By George Eliot

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. By George Eliot

The worst service, I fancy, that anyone can do for truth, is to set silly people writing on its behalf. By George Eliot

The story can be told without many words. By George Eliot

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. By George Eliot

The wrong that rouses our angry passions finds only a medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have suffered. By George Eliot

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception. By George Eliot

The floods of nonsense printed in the form of critical opinions seem to me a chief curse of the times, a chief obstacle to true culture. By George Eliot

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid. By George Eliot

Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science. By George Eliot

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth. By George Eliot

Esther always avoided asking questions of Lydley, who found an answer as she found a key, by pouring out a pocketful of miscellanies. By George Eliot

Effective magic is transcendent nature. By George Eliot

But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery - the sooner the better. By George Eliot

But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose / To know the mind that stirs between the wings / Of bees ... By George Eliot

Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all. By George Eliot

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism. By George Eliot

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. By George Eliot

Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings. By George Eliot

Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i' speaking. By George Eliot

Things are achieved when they are well begun. By George Eliot

Veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls. By George Eliot

A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones. By George Eliot

A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger. By George Eliot

In certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy. By George Eliot

Whatever be thy fate today, Remember, this will pass away! By George Eliot

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. By George Eliot

Modesty, not temper. By George Eliot

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas. By George Eliot

What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd with stones in their hands? By George Eliot

What if my words Were meant for deeds. By George Eliot

The fallibility of human brains is in nothing more obvious than in proof reading. By George Eliot

Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice. By George Eliot

Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes. By George Eliot

A perverted moral judgment belongs to the dogmatic system. By George Eliot

What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true and the thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false. By George Eliot

Blameless people are always the most exasperating. By George Eliot

Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue. By George Eliot

There is no sorrow I have thought about more than that - to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail. By George Eliot

Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love. By George Eliot

Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts - not to hurt others. By George Eliot

If troubles were put up to market, I'd sooner buy old than new. It's something to have seen the worst. By George Eliot

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment. By George Eliot

the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is observed to walk under By George Eliot

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. By George Eliot

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart. By George Eliot

Her own misery filled her heart - there was no room in it for other people's sorrow. By George Eliot

Awful Night! Ancestral mystery of mysteries. By George Eliot

Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information. By George Eliot

Opinions: men's thoughts about great subjects. Taste: their thoughts about small ones: dress, behavior, amusements, ornaments. By George Eliot

It must be sad to outlive aught we love. By George Eliot

Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness. By George Eliot

the present moment is all we can call our own for works of mercy, of righteous dealing, and of family tenderness. All By George Eliot

Life was never anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest. By George Eliot

One of the tortures of jealousy is, that it can never turn away its eyes from the thing that pains it. By George Eliot

A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel. By George Eliot

In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also. By George Eliot

To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath. By George Eliot

Loquacity with tongue or pen is its own reward or, punishment. By George Eliot

Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand. By George Eliot

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice. By George Eliot

He loved also to think, "I did it!" And I believe the only people who are free from that weakness are those who have no work to call their own. By George Eliot

That is the bitterest of all,to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing. By George Eliot

The place where you are is the one where my mind must live, wherever I might travel. By George Eliot

Autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called 'Memoirs. By George Eliot

I flutter all ways, and fly in none. By George Eliot

Flutter
Fly

when you are among the fields and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to simple natural pleasures. By George Eliot

I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God. By George Eliot

The religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage. By George Eliot

I have serious things to do now. I have a living to give away. By George Eliot

Our thoughts are often worse than we are. By George Eliot

O the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them. By George Eliot

The mother's love is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities; it is an expansion of the animal existence. By George Eliot

Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. By George Eliot

In this stupid world, most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set. By George Eliot

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth. By George Eliot

It is strange how deeply colours seem to penetrate one, like scent. By George Eliot

There's good chances and bad chances, and nobody's luck is pulled only by one string. By George Eliot

He had the superficial kindness of a good-humored, self-satisfied nature, that fears no rivalry, and has encountered no contrarieties. By George Eliot

The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine. By George Eliot

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self. By George Eliot

Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off. By George Eliot

In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in. By George Eliot

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life. By George Eliot

There are few prophets in the world; few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I can't afford to give all my love and reverence to such rarities: By George Eliot

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. By George Eliot

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. By George Eliot

One always believes one's own town to be more stupid than any other. By George Eliot

Town
Stupid

It will always remain true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us. By George Eliot

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. By George Eliot

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us. By George Eliot

O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray!Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day. By George Eliot

I don't feel sure about doing good in any way now; everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know. By George Eliot

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence. By George Eliot

I cannot imagine myself without some opinion, but I wish to have good reasons for them. By George Eliot

There are moments when our passions speak and decide for us ... like a fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us is mere fuel. By George Eliot

I love not to be choked with other men's thoughts. By George Eliot

I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete inventory of. By George Eliot

The words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them. By George Eliot

He rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families ... By George Eliot

God, immortality, duty - how inconceivable the first, how unbelievable the second, how peremptory and absolute the third. By George Eliot

In high vengeance there is noble scorn. By George Eliot

One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated. By George Eliot

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

Our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching that, well encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little scruples. By George Eliot

There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling. By George Eliot

He sat watching what went forward with the quiet outward glance of healthy old age. By George Eliot

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly By George Eliot

The clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers.["Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," The Westminster Review, 1885.] By George Eliot

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentleman whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes. By George Eliot

It is seldom a medical man has true religious viewsthere is too much pride of intellect. By George Eliot

The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. By George Eliot

But very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings. By George Eliot

But I hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at once to those who readily understand, and to those who will never understand. By George Eliot

It is never too late to be what you might have been. By George Eliot

Late

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be. By George Eliot

It is never too late to be who you want to be. By George Eliot

Late

Speech may be barren; but it is ridiculous to suppose that silence is always brooding on a nestful of eggs. By George Eliot

Hopes have precarious life.They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer offIn vigorous growth and turned to rottenness. By George Eliot

what isn't honest does come t' harm. I By George Eliot

Harm
Honest

It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand. By George Eliot

Hear Everything and judge for yourself By George Eliot

Hear
Judge

They say fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit. By George Eliot

Everything seems more bearable since I have talked to you By George Eliot

Sweet Truth is a queen proud and mighty Her throne is in heaven above. By George Eliot

(beer was a thing only to be drunk on holidays), and By George Eliot

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence. By George Eliot

Our deeds determine us, as long as we determine our deeds By George Eliot

There is often something poisonous in the air of public rooms, By George Eliot

It is better - it shall be better with me because I have known you. By George Eliot

I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it. By George Eliot

But a good wife - a good unworldly woman - may really help a man, and keep him more independent. By George Eliot

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more that they can choose their birthplace, or their father or mother. By George Eliot

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. By George Eliot

Brothers are so unpleasant. By George Eliot

Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other. By George Eliot

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. By George Eliot

But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope? By George Eliot

College mostly makes people like bladders - just good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured into 'em. By George Eliot

The fact is, both callers and work thicken - the former sadly interfering with the latter. By George Eliot

Other, just as if it had been only yesterday when By George Eliot

Yesterday

You won't be giving me away, father,' she had said before they went to church; 'you'll only be taking Aaron to be a son to you. By George Eliot

Our growing thought Makes growing revelation. By George Eliot

What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir James. 'He has one foot in the grave.''He means to draw it out again, I suppose. By George Eliot

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. By George Eliot

We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born. By George Eliot

One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man. By George Eliot

Even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an unseen support. By George Eliot

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. By George Eliot

Good

It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. By George Eliot

I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men. By George Eliot

It is good to be helpful and kindly, but don't give yourself to be melted into candle grease for the benefit of the tallow trade. By George Eliot

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. By George Eliot

Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music. By George Eliot

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness. By George Eliot

Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less. By George Eliot

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would. By George Eliot

For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion. By George Eliot

These charitable people never know vinegar from wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic. By George Eliot

A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber. I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation. By George Eliot

I love words; they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gymnasium of the mind. By George Eliot

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love. By George Eliot

If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for. By George Eliot

I've always felt that your belongings have never been on a level with you. By George Eliot

Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows. By George Eliot

This is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it. By George Eliot

The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them forward. By George Eliot

What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor! By George Eliot

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. By George Eliot

Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on. By George Eliot

Of all forms of human error, prophesy is the most avoidable. By George Eliot

I always think the flowers can see us, and know what we are thinking about. By George Eliot

Nothing at times is more expressive than silence. By George Eliot

Starting a long way off the true point by loops and zigags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. By George Eliot

We're not all put together alike, and we may misjudge one another. God By George Eliot

Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure. By George Eliot

Rosamond being one of those women who live much in the idea that each man they meet would have preferred them if the preference had not been hopeless. By George Eliot

To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. By George Eliot

I don't mind [being ugly], do you? By George Eliot

Mind
Ugly

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it? By George Eliot

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down. By George Eliot

For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance By George Eliot

The kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched - he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him. By George Eliot

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog. By George Eliot

There was no reason why I should go anywhere. The world about me seemed like a vision that was hurrying by while I stood still with my pain. By George Eliot