George Eliot Quotes

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights fo...

Oh, you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her hands round her father´s neck, while he bent his ...

Whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noond...

In poor Rosamond’s mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.

what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

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

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined fo...

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

Certainly the determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of...

A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means...

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

Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

I’ve always felt that your belongings have never been on a level with you.

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

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their cleares...

what secular avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could not get him an ‘appoi...

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

Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there m...

You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. ...

He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James."No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifyin...

Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about mar...

mysterious money had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and the immediate object of toil. H...

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human bein...

There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations; ...

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of d...

Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a ...

We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printe...

The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason i...

The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under ...

Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all ...

O may I join the choir invisibleOf those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their p...

Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle int...

Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must...

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass g...

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life—the life which has a seed of ennobling th...

A man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the hor...

Fred dislikes the idea going into the ministry partly because he doesn't like "feeling obligated to ...

But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent.

We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perha...

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fair...

In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures.

On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclin...

Rosamond, accustomed from her childhood to an extravagant household, thought that good housekeeping ...

Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our tongues are little triggers which...

Mrs. Bulstrode's naïve way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the nothingness of this life and d...

When you are quite well enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you home with me. The journey will a...

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, ...

In short, he felt himself to be in love in the right place, and was ready to endure a great deal of ...

Modesty, not temper.

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

I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the sm...

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred ...

Blameless people are always the most exasperating.

Most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a ...

If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of ...

A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long inter...

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

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

For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the st...

...but prejudices, like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle — solid as the...

That is the way with us when we have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chie...

There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to ha...

He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James."No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifyin...

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

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarrelled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the g...

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

After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may ...

When a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his re...

Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and...

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest ne...

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are cer...

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight ...

My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be meas...

Blessed influence of one truly loving soul on another!

'Tis God gives skill but not without men's hands: he could not make Antonio Stradivarius violins wi...

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breat...

When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business – that the world is spread out expressly a...

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain ...

Animals are such agreeable friends they ask no questions pass no criticisms.

In every parting there is an image of death.

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into...

It's them that takes advantage that gets advantage i' this world.

When a man is happy enough to win the affections of a sweet girl, who can soothe his cares with croc...

Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly -- something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably aske...

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it it proves...

Blessed is the man who having nothing to say refrains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

I fear that in this thing many rich people deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but...

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

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

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They ...

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

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions they pass no criticisms.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement much disputation...

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

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each...

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to inf...

What should I do—how should I act now, this very day . . . What she would resolve to do that day did...