George Eliot Quotes

Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years.

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

I'm not one of those that can see the cat in the dairy and wonder what she's there for.

I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief.

Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.

Conscience is harder than our enemies, Knows more, accuses with more nicety.

A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.

[It is easier] to quell emotion than to incur the consequences of venting it.

Resolve will melt no rocks. But it can scale them.

Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another.

We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

As they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men.

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

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.

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

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.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

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.

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

All the learnin' my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th ' other.

What is opportunity to the man who cant use it?

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

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

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

The worst of all hobbies are those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn out of a sack then.

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

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

There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.

Love supreme defies all sophistry.

Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

The idea of duty--that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self--is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.

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

To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

There are robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer.

It is a wonderful subduer-this need of love, this hunger of the heart.

It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

Those who trust us educate us.

It's no use filling your pocket with money if you have got a hole in the corner.

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

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.

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

Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

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

We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

It's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.