George Eliot Quotes
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Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.
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It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.
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Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.
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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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She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel – that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
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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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One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.
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One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.
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We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.
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Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.
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A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.
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There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.
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Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks.
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Particular lies may speak a general truth.
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I cherish my childish loves--the memory of that warm little nest where my affections were fledged.
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If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should to share those good things; but I should better to share in your trouble and your labour.
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There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration.
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When what is good comes of age, and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing.
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As to memory, it is known that this frail faculty naturally lets drop the facts which are less flattering to our self-love - when it does not retain them carefully as subjects not to be approached, marshy spots with a warning flag over them.
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Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less.
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It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine--something like being blind, while people talk of the sky.
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I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offense. ... Everyone who contributes to the 'too much' of literature is doing grave social injury.
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It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow.
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Each thought is a nail that is driven In structures that cannot decay; And the mansion at last will be given To us as we build it each day.