George Eliot Quotes
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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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One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.
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He hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst; and the future was all dark.
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Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.
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Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
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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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It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too.
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What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd with stones in their hands?
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Might, could, would - they are contemptible auxiliaries.
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We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.
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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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Even those who call themselves 'intimate' know very little about each other - hardly ever know just how a sorrow is felt, and hurt each other by their very attempts at sympathy or consolation. We can bear no hand on our bruises.
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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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Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: - in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.
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You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.
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Our thoughts are often worse than we are.
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We judge other according to results; how else?--not knowing the process by which results are arrived at.
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The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.
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I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand.
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Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence.
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If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment.
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Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.
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Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.
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Shepperton Church was a very different looking building five-and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days; but in everything else what changes!