George Eliot Quotes
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Creeds of terror.
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And Dorothea..she had no dreams of being praised above other women. Feeling that there was always something better which she might have done if she had only been better and known better, her full nature spent itself in deeds which left no great name on the earth, but the effect of her being on those around her was incalculable. For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and on all those Dorotheas who life faithfully their hidden lives and rest in unvisited tombs. Middlemarch
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It is in the nature of foolish reasonings to seem good to the foolish reasoner.
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Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?
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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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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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There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
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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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It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crop.
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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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Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.
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Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive the consequences of their recklessness.
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Autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called 'Memoirs.
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For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.
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Impatient people, according to Bacon, are like the bees, and kill themselves in stinging others.
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Lamech's sons were heroes of their race: Jubal, the eldest, bore upon his face The look of that calm river-god, the Nile, Mildly secure in power that needs not guile.
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Such patience have the heroes who begin, Sailing the first toward lands which others win. Jubal must dare as great beginners dare, Strike form's first way in matter rude and bare, And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir Of the world's harvest, make one poor small lyre.
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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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He had a sense that the old man meant to be good-natured and neighbourly; but the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched - he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him.
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Certain winds will make men's temper bad.
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Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.
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In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.
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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.