George Eliot Quotes

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

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.

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

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

Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.

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

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

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.

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

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

The devil tempts us not--'tis we tempt him, Reckoning his skill with opportunity.

The tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die.

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly

Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.

I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how could anyone find an intense interest in life? And many do.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.

You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I will never have another.

Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.

Our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching that, well encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little scruples.

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

Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts—not to hurt others.

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

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

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.

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

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

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

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

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.

No anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly.

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.

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

College mostly makes people like bladders-just good for nothing but t'hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

There's truth in wine, and there may be some in gin and muddy beer; but whether it's truth worth my knowing, is another question.