George Eliot Quotes
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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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As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men.
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Justice is like the kingdom of God--it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning.
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The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up from receiving and holding ought that is precious.
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Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.
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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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You know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation.
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Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulation of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.
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It is a fact capable of amiable interpretation that ladies are not the worst disposed towards a new acquaintance of their own sex, because she has points of inferiority.
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Vague memories hang about the mind like cobwebs.
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I like to read about Moses best, in th' Old Testament. He carried a hard business well through, and died when other folks were going to reap the fruits; a man must have courage to look after his life so, and think what'll come f it after he's dead and gone.
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If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.
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O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.
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You must mind and not lower the Church in people's eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing.
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'I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,' said Mr. Irwine. 'No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things'.
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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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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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Inclination snatches argumentsTo make indulgence seem judicious choice.
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In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.
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It's well known there's always two sides, if no more.
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There's no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.
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History, we know, is apt to repeat itself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.
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To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.
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It is better sometimes not to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.