George Eliot Quotes
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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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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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Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.
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How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends!
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We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.
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No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.
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We cannot reform our forefathers.
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That is the bitterest of all,--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.
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Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish, And serve the ends of wisdom.
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The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity.
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The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character.
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no sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods
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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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Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love.
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Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing.
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Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i' speaking.
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There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.
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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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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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Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
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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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While the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide...
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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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Love supreme defies all sophistry.