George Eliot Quotes, Sayings, Remarks, Thoughts and Speeches
George Eliot Quotes and Sayings
- 1
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 2
A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 3
A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 4
Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 5
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 6
All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 7
All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 8
An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 9
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 10
And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 11
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 12
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 13
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 14
Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 15
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 16
Breed is stronger than pasture.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 17
But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 18
But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 19
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 20
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 21
Consequences are unpitying.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 22
Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 23
Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 24
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 25
Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 26
Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 27
Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 28
Excessive literary production is a social offense.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 29
Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 30
Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 31
For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 32
Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 33
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 34
Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 35
He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 36
Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 37
Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 38
I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 39
I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 40
I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 41
I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 42
I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 43
I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 44
I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 45
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 46
Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 47
In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 48
In every parting there is an image of death.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 49
In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 50
In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 51
Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 52
It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 53
It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 54
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 55
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 56
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 57
It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 58
Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 59
Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 60
Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 61
Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 62
Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 63
Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 64
Might, could, would - they are contemptible auxiliaries.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 65
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 66
Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 67
No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 68
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 69
No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 70
No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 71
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 72
One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 73
Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 74
Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 75
Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 76
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 77
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 78
Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 79
People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 80
Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 81
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.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 82
Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 83
Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 84
Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 85
That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 86
The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 87
The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 88
The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 89
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.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 90
The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 91
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 92
The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 93
The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 94
The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 95
The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 96
The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 97
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 98
The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 99
The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 100
The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 101
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 102
There are many victories worse than a defeat.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 103
There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 104
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 105
There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 106
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 107
There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 108
There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 109
To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 110
Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 111
Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 112
We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 113
We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 114
We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 115
We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 116
Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 117
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 118
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 119
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 120
What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 121
When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 122
When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 123
When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 124
Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 125
Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 126
Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 127
You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
- 128
You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.
George Eliot | Refcard PDF ↑
