George Eliot Quotes
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We have had an unspeakably delightful journey, one of those journeys which seem to divide one's life in two, by the new ideas they suggest and the new views of interest they open.
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The darkest night that ever fell upon the earth never hid the light, never put out the stars. It only made the stars more keenly, kindly glancing, as if in protest against the darkness.
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There comes a night when all too late The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand, The eager thought behind closed portals stand, And the last wishes to the mute lips press Buried ere death in silent helplessness.
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The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
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So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood; doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot; but it is gone forever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood.
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To superficial observers his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking as if it were being gradually reabsorbed. And it did indeed cause him some difficulty about the fit of his satin stocks, for which chins were at that time useful.
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A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
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The difficulty is, to decide how far resolution should set in the direction of activity rather than in the acceptance of a more negative state.
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I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them.' 'The time will come, dear, the time will come.
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You know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation.
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There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.
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What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.
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If troubles were put up to market, I'd sooner buy old than new. It's something to have seen the worst.
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How impossible it is for strong healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true - the religion that is strength to the healthy - is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.
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The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up from receiving and holding ought that is precious.
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Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
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A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.
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In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.
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I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.
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Bad literature of the sort called amusing is spiritual gin.
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Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.
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But a morbid consciousness that others did not give him the place which he had not demonstrably merited-a perpetual suspicious conjecture that the views entertained of him were not to his advantage- a melancholy absence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a passionate resistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing.
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The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; . . .
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The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.