George Eliot Quotes - Page 23

• If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.

  George Eliot

  Dog, Mean, Justice

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.590

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• ... it is one of the gains of advancing age that the good of young creatures becomes a more definite intense joy to us. With that renunciation for ourselves which age inevitably brings, we get more freedom of soul to enter into the life of others; what we can never learn they will know, and the gladness which is a departed sunlight to us is rising with the strength of morning to them.

  George Eliot

  Morning, Joy, Soul

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.603

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• Letter-writing I imagine is counted as 'work' from which you must abstain, and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see, I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence. Hence you have nothing to answer.

  George Eliot

  Writing, Self, Answers

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.671

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• The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief.

  George Eliot

  Grief, New Beginnings, Each Day

  George Eliot, John Walter Cross (2010). “George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals”, p.348, Cambridge University Press

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• I am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves.

  George Eliot

  Pain, Feelings, Paradise

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6988, Delphi Classics

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• ... happy husbands and wives can hear each other say the same thing over and over again without being tired.

  George Eliot

  Husband, Tired, Wife

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• But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?

  George Eliot

  May, Handsome, Lovable

  GEORGE ELIOT (1860). “ADAM BEDE”, p.152

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• To most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?

  George Eliot

  Stupidity, Social, Unendurable

  George Eliot (2007). “Middlemarch”, p.579, Collector's Library

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• We are overhasty to speak as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours.

  George Eliot

  Feelings, His Love, Speak

  George Eliot (1873). “Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot”, p.68

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• Love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object, and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery.

  George Eliot

  Love, Mystery, Divine

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss”, p.35, Xist Publishing

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• I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.

  George Eliot

  Thinking, Hardship, Pretending

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.99, Penguin

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• But with regard to critical occasions, it often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.

  George Eliot

  Lasts, Moments, Critical

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.333, Penguin

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• Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right.

  George Eliot

  Integrity, Ashamed, Doing Right

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• To the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

  George Eliot

  Rivers, Soul, Receptive

  George Eliot (1873). “Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot”, p.185

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• I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.

  George Eliot

  Nice, Book, Reading

  George Eliot (2016). “Daniel Deronda: Top Novelist Focus”, p.37, 谷月社

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• I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me

  George Eliot

  People, Speak, Enough

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.84, Penguin

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• Animals are such agreeable friends.

  George Eliot

  Animal

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot's Life, Complete: Top Novelist Focus”, p.226, 谷月社

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• Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.

  George Eliot

  Easy, Difficult, Motive

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• 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.

  George Eliot

  Mind, Well Known, Conviction

  GEORGE ELIOT (1860). “ADAM BEDE”, p.300

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• I not only want to be loved, I want to be told that I'm loved.

  George Eliot

  Want

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

  George Eliot

  Errors, Form, Humans

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• Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead.

  George Eliot

  Years, Expectations, Vain

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot's Life, Complete: Top Novelist Focus”, p.50, 谷月社

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• Education is an asset no man can take away.

  George Eliot

  Men, Assets

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• It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

  George Eliot

  Friends, Thinking, Fiber

  George Eliot (2010). “The Works of George Eliot”, General Books

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

  George Eliot

  Opportunity, Politics, Vices

  George Eliot (2010). “Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.549, The Floating Press

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