George Eliot Quotes
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In all failures, the beginning is certainly the half of the whole.
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But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled.
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For character too is a process and an unfoldingamong our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protruberent there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?
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Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places.
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There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.
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Let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the hands of the toiler; but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope.
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Creeds of terror.
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There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination.
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Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.
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Kisses honeyed by oblivion.
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Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.
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The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.
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A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories.
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Fate has carried me 'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my stand Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast To pierce another.
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What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
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It is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found - in loving obedience.
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'Jubal,' the face said, 'I am thy loved Past, The soul that makes thee one from first to last. I am the angel of thy life and death, Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath. Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride Who blest thy lot above all men's beside?
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Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
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As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men.
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The mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims ... to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy.
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Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.
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Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honey-moon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic - the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which make the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.
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Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.