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George Eliot

British writer of novels characterized by realistic analysis of provincial Victorian society (1819-1880)

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

– George Eliot

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One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character.

– George Eliot

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The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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Be courteous, be obliging, but don't give yourself over to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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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

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It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, Know thyself, and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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It's never too late to be who you might have been.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

– George Eliot

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Perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

– George Eliot

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There are many victories worse than a defeat.

– George Eliot

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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.

– George Eliot

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

– George Eliot

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there's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was I' their boots.

– George Eliot

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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.

– George Eliot

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Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

– George Eliot

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