George Eliot Quotes

To judge wisely, we must know how things appear to the unwise.

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more that they can choose their birthplace, or their father or mother.

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.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

We ust find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

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

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

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.

Wear a smile and have friends, wear a scowl and have wrinkles.

Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

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.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech-one does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.

It seems to me we can never give up longing And wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, And we must hunger after them.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but, to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren, but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and, when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

I do not believe that any writer has ever exposed this bovaryisme, the human will to see things as they are not, more clearly than Shakespeare.

If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And counting find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went- Then you may count that day well spent.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

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

Speech is but broken light upon the depth of the unspoken.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

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