George Eliot Quotes
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I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
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An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
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Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags , we now and then arrive just where we ought to be.
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May every soul that touches mine - be it the slightest contact - get there from some good; some little grace; one kindly thought; one aspiration yet unfelt; one bit of courage for the darkening sky; one gleam of faith to brave the thickening ills of life; one glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists - to make this life worthwhile.
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Her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the world.
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It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.
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All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
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When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
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There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room.
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What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.
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Who can proveWit to be witty when with deeper groundDulness intuitive declares wit dull?
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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!
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If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas.
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That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger - not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.
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The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable.
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Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
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What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir James. 'He has one foot in the grave.' 'He means to draw it out again, I suppose.
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It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give.
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Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
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Ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. Do not believe them; it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in.
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In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.
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Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.
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There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room.
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She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.