George Eliot Quotes

The beauty of a lovely woman is like music.

Imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity.

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

Of all forms of human error, prophesy is the most avoidable.

Mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side.

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

Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist that enshrouds others.

Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a PREFERENCE for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far, The voice divine of human loyalty.

If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.

I think I am quite wicked with roses. I like to gather them, and smell them till they have no scent left.

A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment.

There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible.

So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies.

Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability?

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence.

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.

We must not inquire too curiously into motives. they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine--something like being blind, while people talk of the sky.

If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment.

I am not imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

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

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.

There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.

... learning to love any one is like an increase of property, -- it increases care, and brings many new fears lest precious things should come to harm.

We have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.

There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can't isolate yourself and say that the evil that is in you shall not spread. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease.

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

I flutter all ways, and fly in none.

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

It is hard to believe long together that anything is "worth while," unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be. . . .

Subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.

If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally.

In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

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.

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

To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline.

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.