George Eliot Quotes
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The last refuge of intolerance is in not tolerating the intolerant.
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Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on.
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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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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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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.
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The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.
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Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.
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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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There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence.
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The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.
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Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
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If I have read religious history aright, faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords; and it is possible, thank heaven! to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings.
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One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.
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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
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Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so.
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I love not to be choked with other men's thoughts.
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Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly.
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The bow always strung ... will not do.
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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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Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
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There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.
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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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The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us.