George Eliot Quotes
-
A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.
-
There is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music,--that does not make a man sing or play the better.
-
There are but two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other, and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the strongest.
-
What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?
-
A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow.
-
Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means -one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.
-
It's them as take advantage that get advantage I' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em.
-
When one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one's finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent.
-
The sweetest of all success is that which one wins by hard exertion.
-
How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice; it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne and flows by the path of obedience.
-
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
-
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
-
The sublime delight of truthful speech to one who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself felt even through the pangs of sorrow.
-
Loquacity with tongue or pen is its own reward -- or, punishment.
-
Teach love, for that is what you are.
-
Awful Night! Ancestral mystery of mysteries.
-
Much of our waking experience is but a dream in the daylight.
-
Religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.
-
A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children - always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good.
-
Man finds his pathways: at first they were foot-tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness; now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway.
-
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
-
One has to spend many years in learning how to be happy.
-
All things journey: sun and moon, Morning, noon, and afternoon, Night and all her stars; 'Twixt the east and western bars Round they journey, Come and go! We go with them!
-
When a homemaking aunt scolds a niece for following her evangelistic passion instead of domestic pursuits, her reply is interesting. First, she clarifies that God's individual call on her doesn't condemn those in more conventional roles. Then, she says she can no more ignore the cry of the lost than her aunt can the cry of her child.