George Eliot Quotes
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But she took her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently as everything else, considering that "men would be so", and viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.
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I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.
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I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.
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A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful.
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Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.
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The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.
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How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.
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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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Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.
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It is good to be helpful and kindly, but don't give yourself to be melted into candle grease for the benefit of the tallow trade.
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The intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear.
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The law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes depend on them.
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The poverty of our imagination is no measure of say the world's resources. Our posterity will no doubt get fuel in ways that we are unable to devise for them.
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The worst service, I fancy, that anyone can do for truth, is to set silly people writing on its behalf.
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That is the bitterest of all,--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.
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Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young. As angels are, ripening through endless years, On one he leans: some call her Memory, And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet, With deep mysterious accords: the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp with streams A light divine and searching on the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew, Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked But for Tradition; we walk evermore To higher paths by brightening Reason's lamp.
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Dear Friends all, A thousand Christmas pleasures and blessings to you -- good resolutions and bright hopes for the New Year! Amen. People who can't be witty exert themselves to be pious or affectionate.
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Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it.
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Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies.
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Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.
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Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?
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The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes.
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If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.
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Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!