George Eliot Quotes
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He said within his soul, ''This is the end: O'er all the earth to where the-heavens bend And hem men's travel, I have breathed my soul: I lie here now the remnant of that whole, The embers of a life, a lonely pain; As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain, So of my mighty years nought comes to me again'.
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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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Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts, Breathing bad air, run risk of pestilence; Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line, May languish with the scurvy.
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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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In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure.
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As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men.
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So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
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The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; . . .
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It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.
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Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.
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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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Leisure is gone,--gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow wagons, and the peddlers, who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.
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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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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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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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Certain winds will make men's temper bad.
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There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives? We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of - to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.
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It is better sometimes not to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.
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It is always your heaviest bore who is astonished at the tameness of modern celebrities: naturally; for a little of his company has reduced them to a state of flaccid fatigue.
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The difficulty is, to decide how far resolution should set in the direction of activity rather than in the acceptance of a more negative state.
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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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I am not resigned: I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson.
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With thy coming Melody was come. This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred.
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You told me the truth when you said to me once, 'There's a sort of wrong that can never be made up for'.