George Eliot Quotes - Page 19

• 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. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.

  George Eliot

  Men, Animal, Self

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6068, Delphi Classics

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• Quick souls have their intensest life in the first anticipatory sketch of what may or will be, and the pursuit of their wish is the pursuit of that paradisiacal vision which only impelled them, and is left farther and farther behind, vanishing forever even out of hope in the moment which is called success.

  George Eliot

  Forever, Soul, Vision

  George Eliot (1869). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.49

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• There are but two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other, and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the strongest.

  George Eliot

  Men, Two, Feet

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.1416, Delphi Classics

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• The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable.

  George Eliot

  Disappointment, May, Vexation

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.127

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• I cherish my childish loves--the memory of that warm little nest where my affections were fledged.

  George Eliot

  Memories, Nests, Littles

  George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.28

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• The human heart finds nowhere shelter but in human kind.

  George Eliot

  Sympathy, Heart, Shelter

  GEORGE ELIOT (1868). “THE SPANISH GYPSY”, p.235

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• What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

  George Eliot

  Omission, Sublime, Poet

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.42, Penguin

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• Our consciences are not all of the same pattern.

  George Eliot

  Patterns, Conscience

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6056, Delphi Classics

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• When you've been used to doing things, and they've been taken away from you, it's as if your hands had been cut off, and you felt the fingers as are of no use to you.

  George Eliot

  Taken, Cutting, Hands

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.1825, Delphi Classics

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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.

  George Eliot

  Running, Air, Breathing

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.490, Wordsworth Editions

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• Religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.

  George Eliot

  Savages, Levels, Emotion

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2593, Delphi Classics

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• Man finds his pathways: at first they were foot-tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness; now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway.

  George Eliot

  Ocean, Men, Air

  George Eliot (2016). “Daniel Deronda: Top Novelist Focus”, p.440, 谷月社

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• We get a deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the money to spend.

  George Eliot

  Useless Things, Useless, Consumerism

  George Eliot (2016). “The Mill On The Floss”, p.243, George Eliot

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• It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give.

  George Eliot

  Giving, Friendly, Opinion

  George Eliot (2016). “The Mill On The Floss”, p.30, George Eliot

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• How impossible it is for strong healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true - the religion that is strength to the healthy - is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

  George Eliot

  Strong, Philosophy, Roots

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6781, Delphi Classics

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• There is so much to read and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger.

  George Eliot

  Reading, Able, Hunger

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6603, Delphi Classics

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• Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.

  George Eliot

  Mistake, Men, Genius

  George Eliot (2016). “Middlemarch: Top Novelist Focus”, p.654, 谷月社

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• In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also.

  George Eliot

  Men, Age, Singles

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.166

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• even those who call themselves 'intimate' know very little about each other - hardly ever know just how a sorrow is felt, and hurt each other by their very attempts at sympathy or consolation. We can bear no hand on our bruises.

  George Eliot

  Sympathy, Hurt, Hands

  George Eliot, John Walter Cross (2010). “George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals”, p.44, Cambridge University Press

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• Opinions: men's thoughts about great subjects. Taste: their thoughts about small ones: dress, behavior, amusements, ornaments.

  George Eliot

  Men, Dresses, Taste

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• A common fallacy: to imagine a measure will be easy because we have private motives for desiring it.

  George Eliot

  Thinking, Common, Imagine

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• The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.

  George Eliot

  Stranger, Wit

  George Eliot (1873). “Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings in Prose and Verse: Selected from the Works of George Eliot”, p.313

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• I love words; they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gymnasium of the mind.

  George Eliot

  Mind, Bows, Gymnasiums

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot's Life, Complete: Top Novelist Focus”, p.30, 谷月社

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• My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them; and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them.

  George Eliot

  Book, Opinion, Delivering

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.398

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• All writing seems to me worse in the state of proof than in any other form. In manuscript one's own wisdom is rather remarkable to one, but in proof it has the effect of one's private furniture repeated in the shop windows. And then there is the sense that the worst errors will go to press unnoticed!

  George Eliot

  Writing, Errors, Furniture

  George Eliot (1955). “The George Eliot Letters: 1874-1877”

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