George Eliot Quotes

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn’t do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

I like trying to get pregnant. I’m not so sure about childbirth.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

Consequences are unpitying.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.