George Eliot Quotes
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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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Wise books For half the truths they hold are honored tombs.
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It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations.
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Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.
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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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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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Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
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Brothers are so unpleasant.
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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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If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.
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People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes.
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As leopard feels at home with leopard.
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Life's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Painting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.
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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.
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Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.
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A woman mixed of such fine elements That were all virtue and religion dead She'd make them newly, being what she was.
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"Heaven help us," said the old religion; the new one, from its very lack of that faith, will teach us all the more to help one another.
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In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny.
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The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant.
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These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people-amongst whom your life is passed-that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire-for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.
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Until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid--too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority.
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That golden sky, which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest.
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Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babies; they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God Almighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.
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Jubal had a frame Fashioned to finer senses, which became A yearning for some hidden soul of things, Some outward touch complete on inner springs That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain, A want that did but stronger grow with gain Of all good else, as spirits might be sad For lack of speech to tell us they are glad.