George Eliot Quotes
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Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.
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The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant.
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If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.
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O the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them.
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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.
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If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.
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Try to take hold of your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision.
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Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!
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Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love.
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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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Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far, The voice divine of human loyalty.
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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.
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I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.
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I've been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward-it's not what people are used to-it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down.
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It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a 'public.'
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I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid.
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Say "I love you" to those you love. The eternal silence is long enough to be silent in, and that awaits us all.
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Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.
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No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.
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Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish, And serve the ends of wisdom.
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Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.
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Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.
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How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends!
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If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.