George Eliot Quotes
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Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lydgate's discontent was much harder to bear; it was the sense that there was a grand existence in thought and effective action lying around him, while his self was being narrowed into the miserable isolation of egoistic fears, and vulgar anxieties for events that might allay such fears.
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I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.
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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
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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 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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To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.
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Things are achieved when they are well begun.
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There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.
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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 is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives?
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He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself.
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The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.
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Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.
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May I reach That purest heaven - be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony; Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty. Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in the diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
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Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.
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The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.
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That is the bitterest of all,--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.
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We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.
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A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful.
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College mostly makes people like bladders-just good for nothing but t'hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.
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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.
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That golden sky, which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest.
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But what we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire; the future estate for which men drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love.
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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. . . .