George Eliot Quotes
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The worst of misery Is when a nature framed for noblest things Condemns itself in youth to petty joys, And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life Gasping from out the shallows.
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There is nothing I should care more to do, if it were possible, than to rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs.
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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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It was the last weakness he meant to indulge in; and 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.
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The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.
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It is necessary to me, not simply to be but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends.
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It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a person's death consecrates him or her anew to us. It is as if life were not sacred too, as if it were comparatively a small thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother or sister who has to climb the whole toilsome mountain with us. It seems as if all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey.
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Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.
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Resolve will melt no rocks. But it can scale them.
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no sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods
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Lord! Thou art with Thy people still; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee; open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping over them, and saying, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life"--see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"--see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen.
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It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.
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No eye saw him, while with loving pride Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied. Must he in conscious trance, dumb, helpless lie While all that ardent kindred passed him by? His flesh cried out to live with living men, And join that soul which to the inward ken Of all the hymning train was present there.
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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
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We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves.
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A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.
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There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.
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Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
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Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.
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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.
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People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.
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He was at a starting point which makes many a man's career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose. . . .
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Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.
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We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.