Quotes by George Eliot
Be courteous, be obliging, but don't give yourself over to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade.
Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.
The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.
... the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.
Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.
The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
The tendancy of liberals is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined.
Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.
A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.
...Fielding lived when the days were longer (for time, like money, is measured by our needs).
We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life -- some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed -- because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.
The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.
Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken.
The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.
There are glances of hatred that stab, and raise no cry of murder.
I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.
... farming conservatism, which consisted in holding that whatever is, is bad, and any change is likely to be worse.
Each thought is a nail that is driven In structures that cannot decay; And the mansion at last will be given To us as we build it each day.
I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of literature and speech and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.
Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.
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.
