George Eliot Quotes
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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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I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.
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I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.
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Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.
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Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor.
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Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?
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A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.
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Particular lies may speak a general truth.
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Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.
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I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now.
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Joy is the best of wine.
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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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Life's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Painting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.
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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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Things are achieved when they are well begun.
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Trouble always seems heavier when it is only one's thought and not one's bodily activity that is employed about it.
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We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.
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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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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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The Press has no band of critics who go the round of the churches and chapels, and are on the watch for a slip or defect in the preacher, to make a 'feature' in their article: the clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers.
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If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.
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We get a deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the money to spend.
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Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.
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To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline.