George Eliot Quotes
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The usual attitude of Christians towards Jews is - I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid, when viewed in the light of their professed principles. ... They hardly know Christ was a Jew. And I find men, educated, supposing that Christ spoke Greek. To my feeling, this deadness to the history which has prepared half our world for us, this inability to find interest in any form of life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounces as our own, lies very close to the worst kind of irreligion.
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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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Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.
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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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He had the superficial kindness of a good-humored, self-satisfied nature, that fears no rivalry, and has encountered no contrarieties.
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A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.
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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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It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.
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Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!
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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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Appearances have very little to do with happiness.
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There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.
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Particular lies may speak a general truth.
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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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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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Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
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There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good.
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Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it.
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The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.
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"Abroad," that large home of ruined reputations.
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Jews are not fit for Heaven, but on earth they are most useful.
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We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.
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Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly -- something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates.
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I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.